


Down the Burrow of the Burrowing Owl

by Fox_the_Hermit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Abusive Dursley Family, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Different World Setting, Everyone Plots!, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderfluid Character, Good Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts, I'm Bad At Tagging, Lots of mysteries, Magical Ravens, Many minor OC's, More supernatural stuff, Mystery, Nightmares, Nightmares that cause injuries, Plots!, Recurring Nightmares, Small pars of dialogue from the original books, Smart Harry, Smart Neville, Smart Ron, Some nice Slytherins, Very AU, gender neutral characters, lots and lots of characters, minor OC's - Freeform, smart Hermione, that show up really late, very long story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_the_Hermit/pseuds/Fox_the_Hermit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter, unofficial resident of Number 4, Privet Drive, is an unusual child. He knew that. Every resident of Privet Drive knew that, thanks to the gossiping Petunia Dursleys.<br/> Other than his Aunt and Uncle, no one knew just how unusual he really was, until one fine day in July...</p><p> </p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Reptile House

_ They fled. They no longer knew why they fled, who they were fleeing from, or where they was feeling to.  _

_ They did not know how much time had passed- it could have been days, or years, or just a couple of hours. They only knew that they needed to keep going, keep moving, until they escaped, but then they fell, because there was nothing to run on any more, and they fell into darkness.  _

_ Then there was pain, and fire, and they were trapped in a tiny place with fire, and ice, and pain, and they were freezing and burning, and locked away, and they couldn't get out. _

Harry woke up in the cupboard, gasping for breath with the desperation that only drowning or choking usually brings. This recurring nightmare had been invading their  ' _ Remember, Dursleys's don't like freaks'   _ his dreams more and more often, leading to sleepless nights as ~~(they)~~ he tried to avoid sleeping and dreaming. This was becoming an increasingly easy task, as with each nightmare, ~~(thei-)~~ his fear of the cupboard and the darkness grew, due to the… whatever it was that ~~(the-)~~  he experienced in his dreams. ~~(Th-)~~  He wished he still dreamed about the green light and the car crash that killed ~~(th-)~~ his parents. That, while strange and accompanied by a short-lived dull throb in his scar, was not accompanied by sharp, piercing pain in his head and back whenever he woke up.

Harry pressed his back against the cold cupboard wall in an attempt to relieve the pain, which was only slightly starting to recede. To distract himself, he tried to remember what day it was.  _ 'Today is... oh no... It is Dudley's birthday. And Mrs Figg had broken her leg yesterday - there is no way the Dursleys would let me stay with her. Today is not going to end well. Or even begin well.’ _

Sighing, Harry decided to get up. By his reckoning, it was about eight in the morning, and Dudley would wake up in about half an hour, and then the family would go somewhere, with one of Dudley's friends, to celebrate Dudley's birthday, while Harry would  _ usually  _ be left with Mrs Figg, a batty old woman who lived down the street.

A sharp rap on his door confirmed his thoughts, and he replied to his Aunt's question (whatever it was; he wasn’t listening and hoped he hadn’t agreed to anything too dire) with a "Yes". He opened the door of his cupboard, and proceeded to the kitchen, to start cooking breakfast.

He was still thinking about his dreams, when Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen. "Comb your hair!" he barked, instead of a morning greeting. That was something of a daily ritual, as Vernon always complained about Harry's hair. When Harry was younger, his Aunt had sent him to the barber's every week, until she grew tired of him coming back looking exactly the same, and shaved him bald. Then next morning, after a sleepless night worrying about school the next day, Harry went out of his cupboard with his black-brown hair looking exactly the same as always.

Harry hadn't the faintest inkling as to why his relatives complained so much about his 'wild' hair - it was only somewhat wavy, and only got 'wild' when he was stressed. Maybe because some of the time it hung off his head, looking like recently dried seaweed when Harry could not be bothered to brush it, which was whenever he was at home. Okay, so maybe he understood.

Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley entered the kitchen. Dudley looked very much like his father. He had a large, pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like an angel. Harry thought that Dudley looked like a biology experiment on pigs gone very wrong.

Harry put the eggs and bacon on the table, which was difficult, as most of it was taken up by Dudley's presents. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. Dudley's face fell.

"Thirty six! That's two less than last year!" Dudley exclaimed, his face reddening.

"Look here, darling. You had not counted this one, from Aunt Marge!" Aunt Petunia replied, hastily shoving the pile to pull out a small present.

"Thirty seven then." Dudley started going even  _ more  _ red in the face. Harry, who could see a Big Dudley Tantrum approaching, quickly wolfed down his piece of bacon, in case Dudley started throwing things at him. As usual.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger too, because she said, quickly. "And we'll buy you another four presents while we are out. How is that, darling? Four more presents."

"So I'll have... I'll have..." Dudley screwed his face up, obviously trying to calculate it in his head.

"41 presents." Harry said, quietly.

"Oh, that's alright then." Dudley sat down, causing the chair to creak, and grabbed the nearest present. Harry gazed mournfully at the wrapping paper that started to rain on the floor, knowing that he would have to clear all this up this evening, after Dudley had gone to bed.

"Little tyke knows what he is worth, just like his father. Atta boy!" Vernon chuckled, and ruffled Dudley's hair.

Then the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to pick it up, as Dursley was unwrapping a new video game, camera and golden wristwatch.

"Bad news, Vernon. Mrs Figg can't take him." Petunia said when she returned, jerking her head in the direction of Harry. Dudley's mouth fell open in horror.

"Now what?" Petunia asked angrily. "We can't leave him here, he'd burn the house down! And Marge hates him, so we can't leave him with her, and my friend is out of the country." Petunia and Vernon glared at Harry as though it was his fault. "I suppose we could take him to the zoo with us... And leave him in the car..."

"That car is brand new! I am not leaving him in it."

Dudley started wailing. It was his favourite strategy to get his parents to do what he wanted, and he had not actually cried for years. "I... do... not... want... him... to... come!" He said, punctuating every word with a loud, disgustingly fake sob. "He always ruins everything!"

"Darling Diddykins, don't cry. Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!"

Then the doorbell rang, and Aunt Petunia hurried to the door. Harry heard her say "Yes Mrs. Polkiss, everything is perfectly fine. We will drop him at your house at around three or four. Have a nice day!", seemingly without letting the other woman get in a single word edgewise.

Dudley immediately stopped crying, and stood up to meet his best friend, Piers Polkiss. Piers was part of Dudley's gang of fat or stupid pigs and rats, and as Dudley was the biggest  _ and  _ stupidest pig of the lot, he got to be the leader. Piers looked and even sounded like a rat - scrawny and with a high-pitched voice, the resemblance was easy to spot.

 

Two hours later, Harry could not believe his luck. The elder Dursleys could not find any other solution other than taking him with them, and now Harry was eating a simple lemon ice-cream, on his first-ever visit to the zoo. He only got the ice cream because the lady who was selling them asked him what he wanted before the Dursleys dragged him away. While he would have preferred chocolate, Harry was satisfied with what he got. The Dursleys let him go wherever he wanted as long as he stayed fairly close. Harry did not mind, as that meant he could go and look at birds and big cats all he wanted, and not have to go look at the other animals, that did not interest him.

He examined the ravens in the cage. He had always had an affinity with birds, and although he knew it was not normal, he could easily understand them. With some effort, he could also understand the speech of most animals, though he almost never bothered to. It gave him a splitting headache every time, and they never said  _ anything  _ remotely interesting or intelligent. They did not possess any real intelligence. Understanding ravens and cats was effortless, though, and they almost always had something to tell him, or discuss with him. After a short chat with them, talking about the sort of people that came by, what they did, and how disgustingly and obnoxiously they behaved, he went to look around more.

Two hours of walking later, he had to rejoin the Dursleys for lunch. He even got most of a knickerbocker glory, when Dudley complained about his portion being far too small for him, and Petunia ordered another one. While eating, Harry suddenly had a nasty feeling something was going to happen. Soon. They day had been going far too well for him.

 

After lunch, they went as a group to the reptile house. Dudley was only interested in the thick, man-crushing pythons, and poisonous cobras, and Harry followed him, doing his utmost to look bored. He had never seen a real snake before, and while he may have allowed himself to look excited if he had been alone, Dudley would have reacted badly at him experiencing any pleasant emotion.

Dudley stopped at the cage of what Harry had read to be a Brazilian Boa Constrictor. Dudley pressed his nose against the glass, looking at the brown coils. "Make it move!" he told his father. Vernon tapped the glass several times, but the snake did not react. Dudley frowned, and moved on, saying that it was boring.

Harry walked over to the cage. The snake had looked asleep, or almost so, and he felt guilty that his cousin decided to wake it up.

“Sorry about him. He’s just stupid.” He had made no effort to speak in anything but English, and yet hissing and spitting noises emerged, surprising him. He had never  _ talked _ in an animal language before. Sure he could understand them, and they usually had a fair understanding of English, but none of his non-human friends, or him, ever switched languages.

The snake reared, looking at him. "A speaker. How interesting. I have only heard stories of people such as you."

"There are others?" Harry asked, surprised. He had, of course, heard of stage magicians and snake charmers, but he had assumed they were frauds. Who would  _ really  _ demonstrate those abilities in plain sight? 

"Oh yes. There are other parselmouths, though only wizards can be parselmouths."

"Wizards? Parselmouths?"

Before Harry could get an answer, he was pushed aside by Dudley, and fell on his back, due to the unexpected loss of balance. Through the pain delivered by his back, which was protesting against such rough treatment, he heard Dudley say "Dad! Come here! You wouldn’t believe what this snake is doing!" and saw him press his fat, eager face against the cage. A spike of irritation at having his conversation interrupted, coupled with the pain from his back, caused the strange power in him, that sometimes helped him get into, or out of, trouble, to wake. In the next moment, the glass of the cage vanished, and the snake reared high, hissing at Dudley and Piers, before escaping the cage.

 

The keeper of the snake house was in absolute shock. "But the glass! Where did the glass go?"

The zoo director apologised profusely to Aunt Petunia, before the family left.

As they rode home, Dudley remarked on how he had seen Harry talk to the snake, which cause Harry to shrink in his seat, as what he could see of Vernon's head turned a bright red. He could tell than nothing good would come from this, and prepared himself for the coming confrontation that would likely begin the moment Piers left.

Indeed, when they arrived at Privet Drive, number four, the moment Piers left and closed the door behind himself, Uncle Vernon turned to Harry. He was so furious, that he could barely speak. "CUPBOARD! STAY! NO MEALS!" he shouted at Harry, brandishing his fist, spittle flying from his mouth. Cringing at the thought of staying in his cupboard for days on end, Harry nevertheless followed the instructions, as he did not particularly want to get his back beaten even blacker than it probably already was from the nightmares. Maybe he could sneak to the kitchen to get some food to eat, and some ice for his back later, when everyone else was asleep.

  
  


He'd lived with the Dursleys for a very long, very miserable and very lonely nine and a half years, ever since he had been left on their doorstep after his parents had died in a car crash. He could not actually remember the car crash, no matter how much he tried, and his only clue was that it had involved a lot of green light, which he had occasionally dreamed of.

 

Harry had no friends, either in Privet Drive or at school. No one wanted to be friends with someone Dudley disliked, and so everyone left him alone. For some reason, that felt oddly familiar. He did not mind that very much, though he had no idea as to why that was, although... he had a feeling that it was somehow connected with his most hated nightmare.

  
  
  



	2. The Letter

By the time Harry was allowed out of the cupboard, the summer holidays had begun. This was the longest punishment he had ever earned, and by the time it ended, Dudley had already broken his new video-camera, new watch and three of his video games. He had also broken his racing bike the first time he sat on it, which cheered Harry up considerably, as he now knew that his cousin was most certainly morbidly obese and might die earlier than if he was not, and thus rid the world of his presence earlier.

Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang now, who visited the house everyday. Piers, Dennis, Gordon, Malcolm, Peter, Nick and Dudley were all big, stupid bullies, and as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he got to pick what the others should do. And he always preferred his favourite sport: Harry Hunting. And Harry-Beating-Up.

This was the reason Harry preferred to spend as much time out of the house as possible. He liked to spend time in the library, reading, or hiding in one of the trees in the park. There he conversed with ravens and crows, who almost always had new stories from around England, or at least the neighbourhood for him, and if there was nothing new, they told him old legends. Due to not being able to write, they had a lot of the legends of their kind memorised. He preferred reading, however, as adults always shouted at him whenever he climbed trees. He often stayed in the library, reading up on history and fantasy, his favourite genres.

For some reason, whenever he passed through the religion section of the library, he always got a nasty headache and a nightmare at night, so he always made sure to avoid that section of the library.

At the end of the holidays, Harry could see a ray of hope. He would not be going to the same high school as Dudley. Dudley would be going to Smeltings, Vernon's old boarding school, while Harry would be going to Stonewall High, the local comprehensive. Dudley thought this was very funny, as he had heard that new people often had their head stuffed in the toilets on the first day, a rumor that Harry knew not to be true, as he had already visited Stonewall, and asked one of the nicer-looking senior students about it. It never hurt to be prepared, after all, and such a surprise on his first day would have been very unpleasant.

Somewhere in the beginning of July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley out to buy his new uniform, leaving Harry with Mrs Figg. It was a nicer stay than usual, as it turned out that Mrs Figg had broken her leg by tripping over one of her cats, and now was no longer quite so enthusiastic about them. Even better, she had bought some freshly made chocolate cake from a bakery some ways from Privet Drive, and made Harry eat most of it, because "You are a growing boy, and you need food more than I do! Goodness knows what those Dursleys are feeding you, if they are at all. I wish I could do more, but who would believe 'batty old Mrs Figg'?" Harry thought that the last remark was rather oddly phrased, but he decided not to ask.

When Dudley and Aunt Petunia returned that evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for his family in his brand-new uniform. In Harry's opinion, he looked absolutely ridiculous. He had a maroon tailcoat, orange knickerbockers and a flat straw hat, as well as a knobby stick that was meant for the students to hit each other with whenever the teacher turned away. Aunt Petunia looked to be almost crying as she said that he could not believe how handsome and grown up her ickle Duddleykins looked. Harry chose not to comment. He thought that if he opened his mouth at all, the laughter would burst out in an uncontrollable wave that would get him beat up with the stick.

The next morning, when he came out of his cupboard, he was greeted by his Aunt. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and she looked like she had just swallowed whole a particularly sour lemon. In her hands was a bundle of grey clothes.

"Take these. It's your new school uniform. I thought about dyeing some of Dudley's old clothes for you, but they would look ridiculous on you, and I don't want you to embarrass our family in your school. While it is a local school, it is also  _ quite  _ picky about who goes there, and it has a fairly high standard for its students."

Harry nodded, shocked into silence that his Aunt actually bought something for him, and quickly turned around to carefully place the new clothes into his cupboard, so that they would not get wrinkled.

When he returned, Uncle Vernon and Dudley had already entered the kitchen. Harry had barely sat down on his chair, when the flop of letters hitting the floor announced the arrival of the morning post. He immediately got up to get the letters, knowing better than to try arguing about it. When he came to the door, and bent down to pick them up, he immediately saw a letter made from parchment. His curiosity jolted into awareness from the light doze that it preferred to reside in while he was in Number 4, he carefully picked the letter up, and was shocked when he read who it was addressed to.

_ “Mr Potter,  _

_ The Cupboard Under the Stairs,  _

_ 4 Privet Drive  _

_ Little Whinging  _

_ Surrey”  _

Now, if Harry was a little bit less smart, he might have taken it into the kitchen with him. If Harry was a little bit smarter than that, he might have stuffed it into his shirt. Harry, however, was smart enough that when his Uncle called "Hurry up boy! What's taking you so long? Checking for letter bombs?" and chuckled at his own joke, that he purposefully tripped on his way back and fell down on the floor right in front of the door of his cupboard, giving him the opportunity to stuff the letter under the door, meaning that unless the Dursleys opened the door (they hated even touching it), then his letter was safe.

Returning to the kitchen, he handed over the other post to Uncle Vernon and then proceeded to eat his breakfast. The rest of breakfast passed without any incidents.

When Harry got back to his cupboard later that day, he immediately turned on the light so that he could read his letter. Opening the letter, he took out two pieces of parchment out. He opened the first one and read it.

 

_ Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry  _

_ Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order Of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards)  _

_ Dear Mr Potter,  _

_ We are pleased to inform you, that if you so choose, you have a place in our school. Along with this notice you will find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment for this school year, as well as a ticket to the train that will leave on the 1st of September from Platform 9 and 3/4, King's Cross Station which can be accessed by running through the third barrier on the left of the ticket booth when facing platform nine.  _

_ The tuition fee has already been paid by your parents before your birth, and if you desire not to attend our school, we will return all the money to you.  _

_ Whether you choose to attend Hogwarts or not, please send your owl no later than the 31st of July. If you have any further questions, please write include them in your reply, or request for a teacher to come to answer your questions.  _

_ Yours Sincerely,  _

_ Minerva McGonnagall  _

_ Deputy Headmistress and Transfiguration Teacher.  _

Harry breathed out, slowly. Was this a prank? That was unlikely, as there was no one who would bother doing that. Besides, hadn't that snake said that he was a wizard? This could very well be true. However, as he did not have an owl, he had no way to reply to the letter. Then, a thought entered his head. He might not have an owl, but he certainly knew ravens and crows, and perhaps one of them would know something about this, and would be willing to deliver a letter for him, if sufficiently bribed with food.

Several minutes later, Harry had managed to sneak out of Privet Drive, with a small piece of paper clutched in his hands, with his questions to Professor McGonagall written neatly on it. He hurried to the park, where, thankfully, there were already a few crows, trying to get visitors to feed them, through alternating between acting pitiful and intimidating.

"Hello evreyone! Listen, I'd love to hear more of your stories today, but I have an urgent question. I have received a letter today from somewhere called 'Hogwarts'. Do you know anything about it?"

The crows looked at each other, and then the oldest one there, a large dark grey one by the name of Dar, answered. "Well... I have actually been there. It's a wizard school, located in Scotland. I assume that you need one of us to carry your reply to the letter there? Unless you have already acquired an owl..." He flew over to stand right by the patch of grass on which Harry was sitting.

"I have not, yet. I would be very grateful if you delivered that letter there, or had someone else deliver it..." Harry asked, hopefully.

"Well, I am not fast or young enough to deliver the letter there myself, I think, but I heard that there is magical raven nearby. I can ask him."

"Magical raven?"

"Some ravens are born with magic, that allows them to be much faster, stronger and live longer than any other bird, other than a phoenix. Like wizards, really. We call these ravens 'Death-blessed' due to an ancient legend. I don't remember the way that one goes exactly, but to put it simply, the legend says that we, crows, ravens, owls and some other animals were created by Death, to watch over the land and brings news to him when he was imprisoned under the ground, with the burrowing owls digging burrows to where he was held, that allowed them to relay news. Some ravens were blessed with magic, so that they could fulfill that job better, and could gather the news faster.

There are many legends about these events, actually, but they are not well known in this area of the Isles. However, in the north parts, especially in Scotland, the original legends are still supposed to be well preserved in some minds, so if you are interested you should ask around there. Avalon is also supposed to have a clan of birds who have preserved the legends accurately, but I do not know for certain." The crow looked satisfied at himself at remembering so much, while Harry tried to process everything he’d heard. It sounded interesting, and he hadn’t heard of this before.

While fantasy and history were Harry's favourite reading topics, he also liked reading creation myths, though for some inexplicable reason he could not stand some of the stories. It was puzzling, but somehow he always forgot to investigate it. That, unfortunately, was a recurring problem. He always forgot things that he wanted to investigate later, and making notes did not help, as he kept losing them.

 

He gave the crows a piece of bread that he had managed to nick from the Dursleys as payment, and handed over the letter to Dar, who carefully grabbed it in his claws and flew off, followed by the other crows who were interested in meeting the magical raven. After watching them until they flew out of his line of vision, he climbed down from the tree and returned to Number 4 Privet drive, wondering when the reply to his letter would come back from Hogwarts.

As he walked back to Privet Drive, he spotted Dudley's gang around the corner. He sighed, and prepared to run.

  
  
  



	3. Leaving Number 4

Harry waited impatiently for the reply to come back. He knew that it had only been two days since he sent his letter with Dar to be relayed to the raven, but he still hoped that the letter had already gotten to the Deputy Headmistress.

It was breakfast time, and he was frying bacon, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were reading the newspaper, and Dudley was gazing slack-jawed at the TV which had some sort of cartoon playing, when the doorbell rang. Aunt Petunia immediately went to get it.

"Hello, Mrs.. Who are you?" Harry heard the suspicion enter his Aunt’s voice almost as soon as she spoke.

"I am Professor McGonagall. I have come here to offer Mr Potter a place at the school at which I work, and am the Deputy Headmistress of."

"What? How? We have never applied to any school for him!" Aunt Petunia asked even more suspiciously. Harry prayed this would work. This was his ticket out of here. HE couldn’t lose it.

"His name had been down from his birth, as he happens to be a member of a family that often produces members with... talents that our school can work with. His tuition has been payed for by a foundation for especially gifted students, such as him.

"Our school is a boarding school, and while the students can return home for Christmas and Easter holidays, they can also stay at school during the holidays."

"What about summer? Can he stay at school then, too?" Harry heard his Aunt Petunia asked eagerly. He snorted.  _ That  _ was the question she’d ask first - whether he could be gotten rid off permanently.

"While it is impossible for students to stay at school over summer, it is possible for them to stay over at an establishment... connected with our school, for a small fee, paid by our school, from July to the beginning of the school year. He would still have to stay with you from the beginning of June until the middle of June, however, as the establishment does not accept our students at that time."

"Fine! Excellent, actually. Take him now." Aunt Petunia hastily returned to the kitchen, exultant at Harry's impending departure.

"Boy! Grab your clothes and things from the cupboard. A woman has come to collect you. I don't want to see you until the end of the school year!" She obviously did not care very much about where he was sent off to, as long as he did not return. Harry snorted. He did not hesitate to run to his cupboard, grab a bag, stuff all his things in it, and run to the door. The moment he heard that it was Professor McGonagall, and that she was talking about living arrangements for his year, he realised that this was his chance to get away from the Dursleys for a nice long while. Rushing over to the door he hastily bowed to the tall, older woman wearing a business suit, and said "Good morning Professor McGonagall."

"Good morning Mr Potter. Let us depart now.” She gestured and he followed her, closing the door behind him. They started down the street to the Magnolia Crescent. Harry kept quiet. He had lots of questions, but he did not want any passersby to hear the ‘Dursleys’ trouble-making cousin’ discuss magic.

“This is all you own, yes, Mr Potter? It is very little, but…” The professor sighed. “I guessed something like this would happen, judging by how happy she was to get rid of you, and the questions regarding boarding she asked. I am happy I chose to introduce myself as non-magical. I knew leaving you with these people was a bad idea!"

"What?" Harry was astonished.

"I had seen your legal guardian leave you here for the Dursley's to adopt, even though I had seen how they behaved and told him not to. Unfortunately, active interference would have been both illegal and easily traceable back to me. “

“Oh. Alright.” Harry slammed a lid on his indignation at not having been rescued. Shouting at his ‘saviour’ would not be a good idea. Better late than never… and doing illegal things for a stranger's child? The reluctance was understandable. “What are the establishments you mentioned earlier?”

“The Leaky Cauldron Pub and The Three Broomsticks are payed by Hogwarts Orphan Student Fund to host students during the entire summer, though due to extenuating circumstances that I am not at liberty to discuss, you will still have to return here for a little while. Your legal guardian believes that the wards provided by two weeks a year with your relatives provide more benefits than negatives, though I personally disagree."

"Oh, that's alright Professor. Three weeks is not a lot of time, I can survive that."

"Actually, Mr Potter, it is only two weeks. Now, we need to go to the Magical Shopping district, to collect your supplies and buy you everything else you need. While we could use Muggle Transport, Apparating, which is like teleporting, is faster. It is rather unpleasant, and I would prefer if you attempted not to throw up in my direction when we arrive. All you need to do is grip my hand tightly. Now, could you please take us to a secluded spot where no-one will see us disappear?"

Harry nodded, and led the professor to the park, to his favourite hiding spot that was concealed from the casual observers and passers-by.

When they were both out of sight of the few people visiting the park that morning, the professor held out her hand, as if to shake his. Remembering her instructions, he took it. Immediately, there was a mildly uncomfortable twisting sensation and everything disappeared from sight for a moment, and he felt as though he passed through a very tight space, before he saw that they were now in a small, dingy place with two dustbins. He wondered why the journey was not more uncomfortable and looked at Professor McGonagall. She was looking at him in surprise.

"How interesting. You do not seem to have an adverse reaction to this method of transport, Mr Potter. What did you feel as we travelled?"

"Well, I felt slightly... compressed, and everything went black, before I blinked and I could see we were in a new place. It was mildly uncomfortable, but not overly so."

"Curious, but not at all unusual for older witches and wizards. Different wizards and witches react differently to Apparating, and if done often enough, lose almost all adverse reactions anyway. Now, watch closely."

Professor McGonagall turned to the brick wall and tapped several specific bricks a clockwise direction. Immediately, the bricks rearranged into an archway that led onto a twisting cobbled street.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley, Mr Potter. This is one of Britain's largest shopping magical districts, only surpassed by the Witching Way in Glasgow and Hogsmeade Main Street in the all-magical village Hogsmeade, which is close to Hogwarts and can be accessed, with adult permission, by third years and older. I will give you permission depending on your grades, instead of your guardians, as they are unlikely to do that."

Harry was so overwhelmed by the amount of both visual and auditory information, that he could not even reply, as he was immediately distracted by the dozens of shops stretching out in front of him. He wished he had about a dozen more eyes.

As he and professor McGonagall walked along the street, Harry wished he had several sets of eyes, just so that he could see in every direction, to see all the shops, the merchandise, the people doing the shopping. There were cauldron shops, and robe shops, and shops that sold food and potion ingredients, shops that sold books, clothes, magical items, magical  _ creatures _ , and many other things. Passing by the apothecary, he heard somebody exclaim "Only 8 galleons for two unicorn horns? They're ripping themselves off! That is good quality, that is! Should bring 'em at forty, if not fifty, with how hard they are to get without bein’ gutted!"

The people, however, were  _ fascinating _ . They were dressed in cloaks and robes and suits, Asian traditional clothing and modern non-magical, and everything you could think of, a bizarre mish mash of cultures and people. But the differences did not end in clothes styles. 

Harry say people with purple spiky hair and people with dark green hair among the more regular colours. People with scaly or strangely coloured skin, and people with eyes of unnatural colours. There was a man with long curving horns reading a book, and a woman with branches growing from her head lugging a cauldron to a side alley. A child with bright, iridescent hair and eyes ran past, chased by a girl with unnaturally fiery red hair and slitted eyes, yelling and laughing. 

Harry tried not to stare, and paid attention to the shops instead.

Harry heard hooting noises coming from Eeylops Owl Emporium, and decided to return there later. As they passed another store, he saw boys a little younger than him with their noses pressed against the glass, making appreciative noises as they stared at a very sleek broomstick.

In another shop that they passed he could see telescopes piled in a huge stack, globes of the moon, star charts, and other strange things he could not name.

Soon they reached a huge, white marble building that towered over the other buildings. By its great bronze doors stood a short creature with a clever face and long fingers and feet, clothed in a red and gold uniform. He was about to ask Professor McGonagall about what it was, but she answered before he managed to politely phrase the question in his head.

"That is a goblin, Mr Potter. They are in charge of the wizarding world economy, and it would do well for you not to anger them. They dislike thieves, liars and time wasters. To be on the good side of a goblin, always speak clearly and concisely. The goblins are always fair, as long as you do not insult them, and always take a neutral stance in any wizarding war, no matter the stakes."

Harry nodded, and they proceeded through the bronze set of doors and stopped before a silver set.

"Read that poem, please, Mr Potter."

Harry looked closer at the doors, and saw that there were words engraved on them:

_ Enter, stranger, but take heed  _

_ Of what awaits the sin of greed,  _

_ For those who take, but do not earn,  _

_ Must pay most dearly in their turn,  _

_ So if you seek beneath these floors  _

_ A treasure that was never yours,  _

_ Thief, you have been warned, beware  _

_ Of finding more than treasure there.  _

"Gringotts is the safest location in Britain Mr Potter, in regards to protecting items. When it comes to protecting people or living creatures in general, however, there are only two locations in the world that are better protected than Hogwarts when it's war-time wards are raised - Avalon, Merlin's home, which has been sealed for many hundreds of years from humans, and Mountain of the Endless Wind, in the Himalayas."

"Mountain of the Endless Wind?"

"It is a mountain, on the top of which rests an ancient temple dedicated to the cycle of Death and Life. The monks that lived, and still live there, have created an impenetrable web of wards over the last several thousand years. The wards are powered by the power they invested in the stones of the mountain, and due to how long they have been doing it, they have created a nigh on infinite well of power in the mountain, some of which they drain in their prayers to Death to uphold the natural order of the world. It is unknown where the energy goes, but it goes somewhere, so most people believe that Death is an actual being, and thus uses the energy, or at least part of it is manifested as such. It is not known for sure, however. Some believe that is how Dementors are formed, however, and view the temple as the bastion of all evil."

Harry took a moment to memorize the information, and privately wonder if the drained magic actually empowered the magical ravens, and then the two continued further into the bank. Professor McGonagall led him over to a free goblin, and handed over a key, stating "Good morning. Mr Potter would like to make a withdrawal from his trust vault."

The goblin nodded, and called for another goblin to lead the two to a pair of doors, that lead to a room of rough hewn stone, where a cart was waiting for them. The witch, wizard and goblin got into the cart and the cart took off. Harry attempted to memorise the route, but it was impossible. There were simply too many twists and turns, and dozens of forks, some having more than two directions.

He did, however, very much enjoy the ride, and as he looked over at his professor, he saw that she also seemed to be enjoying herself as the cart sped deeper and deeper under London.

Far too soon for Harry's tastes however, they stopped at a vault. The goblin opened it with the key, and a lot of dark green smoke billowed out. It quickly dispersed, and Harry gaped at the piles of gold, silver and bronze coins that must have at least half as big as Dudley's second bedroom.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat behind him. "The gold coins are galleons, the silver ones are sickles and the bronze one are knuts. There are seventeen sickles in a galleon, and twenty-nine knuts in a sickle. Here, this is a mokeskin bottomless, feather-light pouch that can store however much you want and can only be opened by you. As there is much you need to buy, and you appear to be a responsible child, I would advise taking three hundred or so galleons in case of unforeseen circumstances."

Harry nodded, still in shock, and began to mechanically scoop gold coins into the bag the professor offered him, until he guessed there were about three hundred inside the bag. The pile of money remaining in the vault looked just the same as before.

He went out of the vault, and the goblin closed and locked the door behind him, and silently offered the key to Professor McGonagall, who handed it over to Harry, saying that it was his to keep.

As they walked back to the cart, Harry asked the goblin whether the cart went any faster than before. The goblin grinned.

The ride back was twice as fast and exhilarating as the ride down, and Harry would later swear that he was not the only one shouting in joy.

  
  
  



	4. Shopping

Harry follow Professor McGonagall out of the bank, his mokeskin pouch held in his hands.

"We will go to Madam Malkin's first, to get your robes and clothes." Professor McGonagall told him.

Harry nodded, deciding to go along with his professor without argument. He had completely forgotten to read the list of items he would need at Hogwarts, so he had no idea of what he needed to buy. That, unfortunately was completely normal for him. He always forgot things, and they would always come back to bite him in the backside later.

"Here we are."

Professor McGonagall's voice jolted him back to reality. They had now stopped in front of a shop that proclaimed itself to be Madam Malkin's Robes and Clothes for all Occasions. Harry bit his lip. It was his first time in a clothes shop and he did not know what to do. Thankfully, as he found out, shopping for clothes in the Wizarding World only involved a couple of spells to measure his size, and then he was allowed to pick out whatever clothes he wanted, after his robes were picked, and then the clothes were resized with magic. Harry picked up some stuff to wear, mostly in grey and black colours, as well as a collection of grey, black, green and gold scarves.

After the robe shop, they went to the Apothecary. While Professor McGonagall requested a standard Potions kit for first years, with three times the amount of everything, as well as extra ingredients, Harry looked around the shop. It smelled horrible, but the things in it more than made up from the smell. He was examining the unicorn horns, when somebody came to stand behind him.

"Interested in potions, boy?" the stranger asked. His voice was a little rough, as though he had a cold, and the cough that came next supported that theory.

"Oh yes. Potions sounds like a very interesting class. I can't wait to get to Hogwarts."

"Well, see you in September then. I am the Hogwarts Potions professor." the stranger replied.

Harry turned around to look at him, and he saw that the stranger seemed shocked at Harry's appearance. Muttering a few apologies, the stranger hurriedly walked away.

"What did you say to Severus?" Harry jumped when he heard McGonagall's voice behind him.

"Severus?"

"Professor Snape to you. He is the Hogwarts Potions Master, and has a reputation of being very difficult to surprise."

"Nothing, I just told him I was interested in potions."

"Ah. Well, you do look fairly similar to your father, though you have your mother's eyes, and your father did not like potions or Professor Snape. Perhaps he was simply reminded of your parents."

After that, nothing more about the incident was said, and so Harry quickly forgot it.

Two hours later, after collecting all the other equipment, as well as the school books, both the ones on the list and ones recommended by Professor McGonagall as further reading for all the subjects, and some extra books on Wizarding mythology. He had also bought a bottomless, feather-light bag for his school supplies, and a trunk that would shrink to the size of a matchbox, was mostly indestructible, could only be opened by him and had several large compartments so that he could store all his possessions there, as McGonagall thought that leaving anything at the Dursley's in the future would be unwise, and leaving his things in Hogwarts would also not be a good idea.

Then they arrived at Ollivander's shop, where Harry would obtain his first wand.

The shop was narrow and shabby, and gold lettering over the door read  _ Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C  _ . One wand lay on the faded green cushion in the dusty window. A tinkling bell rang from somewhere deep within the shop as they entered.

Inside, the shop was tiny and completely empty of people, and Harry almost sneezed from the thousands of specks of multi-coloured something that were moving around the shop, carried by an invisible wind. He asked "Professor, what is this stuff in the air?" as he turned to face his teacher.

"Excuse me, Mr Potter?"

"The dust in the air that is coming from the boxes, what is it?"

"Well, although I can not see it Mr Potter, I would assume that it is magic."

"You are correct, and good afternoon. It is a rare talent, but some wizards are sensitive enough to magic that they can see it when it is in very high concentrations, such as in here."

Harry jumped as the unexpected voice sounded from behind him. He quickly turned around, and saw an old man, with wide pale eyes, who was now standing behind the counter.

"Hello." Harry said awkwardly.

"I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Harry Potter. You have your mother's eyes, but otherwise you look similar to your father, though not identical.

"It seems that it was only yesterday that they were here themselves, buying their first wands. Your mother was favored by a ten a quarter inches, willow with unicorn hair wand, while your father was matched with a pliable mahogany wand."

Well… that was rather weird, in Harry’s honest opinion. And creepy. But hey, weren’t the best people mad? Ollivander sighed as he looked at the lightning scar on Harry's forehead. "I am sorry to say that I sold the wand that did it." He said pointing at the scar.

"Pardon? I got this scar at the bar crash in which my parents died."

Ollivander and Professor McGonagall stared at him, shocked.

"I… I assumed you knew Mr Potter…" words failed her, as her eyes glistened, suspiciously. She exchanged glances with the shopkeeper. Harry frowned. What was going on?

Ollivander decided to explain, after another glance at the Professor. "I may not be the best person to tell you this, Mr Potter, but someone must.

"There was a war, between Dark Lord Voldemort and his supporters who believed that Purebloods, those who have only magical ancestors for more than three generations, should rule over all other wizards, and over muggles, the non-magical people.

"Your parents opposed him, and had even dueled the Dark Lord and survived three times. They were very good and kind people, though at Hogwarts you father had been… not very admirable. He grew out of it in his last two years at Hogwarts.

"It is believed that he, the Dark Lord, could not stand the humiliation of defeat, and so on Halloween of 1981 he marched to your parents house, the location of which had been told to him by one of your parent's friends, who turned out to be a traitor, and killed your parents. He had also attempted to kill you with the killing curse, but something happened and he disappeared. Thus the war ended, as his followers no longer had a leader, and could not organise themselves very well. You are now known as the Boy Who Lived, as you are the only person to ever survive the killing curse unharmed. You are very famous in the Magical World." Ollivander said.

McGonagall blew her nose into a plain grey handkerchief that she conjured with her wand.

Harry blinked, the shock of these news rendering him mute. His parents were murdered? He had survived a killing curse?

He was so disoriented by the news, that Professor McGonagall had to call his name several times to elicit a response from him.

"Yes, professor?" he asked.

"Which hand do you write with?"

"Right."

Ollivander immediately started pulling boxes with wands for him to try, off the shelves. As he was pulling of boxes, Ollivander said "Each Ollivander-made wand has a core of a powerful substance. The main ones are dragon heartstring, phoenix feather and unicorn hair, though there are many others that can be used, such as thestral hairs, but those require very unique qualities from the owner for the wand to function. Ramora spines, for instance, are only for travelers and guardians, and will absolutely refuse to function for anyone else. Grim hairs require a wizard attuned to death and  _ olde  _ magics. Curupiras blood is for those fiercely protective of their family - the only magical in England that is in possession of a wand with Curupiras blood is Molly Weasley. Jobberknoll feathers only serve those with exceptional memories and intelligence - Rowena Ravenclaw is rumored to have had a jobberknoll feather in her wand, and though that is unproven, it would make perfect sense."

Mr Ollivander finally returned to Harry with a stack of boxes.

"Right then, Mr Potter. Try this one. 10 inches, Dogwood, unicorn heartstring, moderately flexible. Just give it a wave."

Harry picked up the wand, but Ollivander immediately snatched it away.

"Dogwood is not for you. It would have reacted instantly. Try this one, Ailanthus with dragon heartstring, eleven inches, quite swishy."

Harry tried, and it was also taken back.

"No, no. Here, ebony and demiguise hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, try."

He tried. And he tried. Harry had no idea what Ollivander was waiting for, but the list of which wand woods would not work for him grew longer and longer, and the more wands were discarded, the happier Ollivander seemed to become.

"Tricky customer, eh? Don't worry we will find something for you soon enough. Perhaps... Why not, here - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

Harry waved it, and a shower of golden sparks shot it. At the same time, however, the wood heated up so much, that he had to drop the wand, as he could no longer hold on to it. It was like a solid flame, and charred the floor where it fell.

"Oh dear." Ollivander looked unhappy. "It seems that the wand is a good match for your magic, but both you and the wand reject each other. I will give you this wand for free, as it will no longer work for anyone else, and it could be useful as a backup wand if you… get over your differences, but your primary wand is most certainly not this one. However, if an unusual combination works for you once, maybe I could try another one, and it will be successful. Here, elder wood, thirteen inches, supple, with a double core of phoenix feather and a feather from an old magical raven. The double core was an experiment, one that went successfully. Give it a wave. It is possible that this wand will work for you..."

Harry picked the wand up, and as he waved it, he felt warmth rush up his arm, and an ethereal song of some sort of bird filled the room, as a freezing wind whipped around the room.

"How curious, how very curious." Ollivander.

"I am sorry sir, but what is curious?" Harry asked.

"It is rare for wand a wand of elder to choose a child as its owner. Often, it is a wand acquired in the later years.

"Now, though wands made of elder usually pass easily at the defeat of the owner without a close bond present, I think that this particular wand will never leave your side. Elder wands seek out those with power, who often live dangerous lives and whose deeds, while great, are often just as unknown as the owners.

"Be careful, Mr Potter, for if an elder wand has decided with certainty that you, and only you, can wield it, regardless of whether you ever lose a battle to someone, then you are indeed, a very, very special person."

Harry shivered, the words making him feel like the room had spontaneously decided to become the Arctic. He was not at all sure why such a wand would choose him, someone who could not even deal with his own nightmares, as its owner, if it was supposed to choose powerful, mysterious wizards.

He payed 15 galleons for his wand and two wand holsters for both his wands, and left the shop with Professor McGonagall, who had been reading a book while she waited for a wand to pick him.

"Now, Mr Potter, we have bought everything you need, except a pet. Would you like a toad, a cat, an owl or some other animal?"

Harry thought. He did not like toads at all, and while he was okay with cats, he wouldn’t want to actually own one. There would be cat hair  _ everywhere _ . An owl, however, sounded nice, and he would be able to ask her or him to fly around and to find out about the Hogwarts grounds.

"Could I have an owl, Professor?"

"Certainly. Now then, let's head to Eeylops Owl Emporium. The largest choice of owls is there."

They walked to the shop in silence, and McGonagall let Harry in first. Looking around, he immediately spotted the most intelligent and most miserable looking owl, a huge white snowy, who was quietly complaining about the noise of the shoppers, when Harry concentrated on understanding owl-speak. He immediately decided to buy her, which cost him surprisingly little, considering how beautiful she was. He knew she would not blend in well anywhere, but she looked too miserable for him to leave her in the shop. When he immediately let her out of the cage upon exiting the shop after buying her and some treats for her, she turned to look at him in surprise, her golden-amber eyes examining him closely.

He quietly introduced himself. "Hello. My name is Harry. What is your name?"

"You can understand owl?" the snowy hooted quietly.

"Yes. Why, can't most wizards?"

"I have been here for over a year, and I have not heard of anything like that! Oh, sorry, where are my manners. My name is Namara of the MacNamara snowy owl clan."

Their short conversation was suddenly interrupted by professor McGonagall. "Mr Potter, excuse me if I am interrupting, but are you  _ actually speaking _ to the owl?"

"Yes professor. It requires effort but I can understand most birds and felines and can easily speak to snakes."

Professor McGonagall frowned, and lowering her voice said "What a collection of an unusual talents… While I see no harm in you telling people about your gift of talking with birds, tell no one about being able to talk to snakes. While untrue, most people have the belief that only the darkest of wizards can do that, and you do not need the stigma of a dark wizard attached to you. Never speak to snakes where anyone can see you, Mr Potter, and only tell your closest and most trusted friends. Understand?"

"Yes professor. Um... I was wondering, if I am so famous, why had someone not recognised me on the street?"

"I was wondering if you would notice, Mr Potter. The truth is, they probably would have, if I had not cast a powerful charm on us that makes us unnoticeable to passers-by. See, how everyone is ignoring us? That is the charm working."

"Oh." Harry nodded, understanding.

"Now Mr Potter, while you are free to explore Diagon Ally by daylight, you will stay in the Leaky Cauldron in the evening and at night, where we will now go to arrange a room for you for the rest of summer. Tom, who runs the place, will also provide you with an amulet that will make people not recognise you, for safety, while you walk around the Alley, which is a standard security measure for students staying over. The Leaky Cauldron provides free breakfast, lunch and dinner for students like you, though you can of course dine at other establishments.

"Do not go to Knockturn Alley - it is very dangerous even for adult wizards to go there, if they have no business there. You can go to the Muggle World, as long as you wear the amulet.

You can exchange some galleons for pounds at Gringotts. There are 42 pounds to a galleon."

They talked some more as they walked to the Leaky Cauldron, mostly Harry questioning the Professor about Hogwarts, and receiving detailed answers in return. After Professor McGonagall arranged the room for him, he said goodbye to her, and then went upstairs to pack his things in his trunk and eat a late lunch provided by Tom the barkeeper.

He was still thinking about the professor's advice for when he came to Hogwarts: before leaving, she said that "Mr Potter, at Hogwarts you will be sorted into one of four houses: Slytherin for the cunning and ambitious, Gryffindor for the brave and chivalrous, Hufflepuff for the loyal and hard-working, or Ravenclaw for the clever. While the Slytherin  _ ideal  _ is a good one, it would be inadvisable for you to get sorted there. It would be far too dangerous for you, as many of the children there are the spawn of Death Eaters, Voldemort's supporters, and would tear you apart.

Try to get sorted into either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, because while Ravenclaws are nice, they are also very nosy. Now, if you do not have any further questions - Goodbye."

Well, wasn’t that ominous?

  
  
  



	5. The Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for Ms and Mr Exposition.

After he had unpacked his things in the room and eaten his lunch, Harry decided to return to Flourish and Blotts to get more books.

As he entered the shop, he fingered the medallion Tom had given him, that was enchanted. It was enchanted to repel attention, and if Harry said "Hagrid's Pumpkin Field", it would magically transport him somewhere safe. Harry wondered how it worked, exactly. Would it feel the same as Apparition?

He went to the History shelves, and started browsing. He was about to pick up a "History of Hogwarts", when a girl's voice interrupted him.

"Don't take  _ that  _ rubbish. If you are going to Hogwarts, you'll get a better guide there, and if you aren’t, then don't bother."

"Why is it rubbish? And why would I not go? Are there other schools?"

"It's rubbish, 'cause it's written by Ministry people, most of whom have never been there, and besides, stuff has happened in the last thirty years. Many things have changed since then. And yes, there are other schools, but there is no way to choose where you go, as the curriculums are based on magical power. Only the most powerful go to Hogwarts. There are about 280 students at Hogwarts, and that’s the smallest school. The other schools have many more, as less powerful wizards and witches are much, much more common."

"How many other schools are there?" Harry was fascinated. Free information dispension was always welcomed by him.

"11. In order of least powerful wizards attending: Aingeal Academy, Westfall, Whitely, Hollow, Alban, Warden, Garden, Highland, Merlin's Nest, Drakon, and Eyire. There are about 10,000 wizards and witches that attend schools in Britain, and about 2 or 3 thousand that are home schooled, and Hogwarts would never be able to house those numbers."

Harry gaped. "That is a lot of magicals, isn't it?"

"Oh yes. And that is considering that several thousand families were slaughtered… Do you want me to go on? I’m not making you late anywhere?” She asked blushing. Harry nodded vigorously. “Okay then. Lots of people died in the last Wizarding war. There are about 100,000 wizards in the UK now, but without the war, it could have been 300,000 or even 500,000, and about 40 or 50 thousand just up and left."

"How did that many deaths go unnoticed?" Harry blinked, and tried to remember ever hearing about anything like that having gone on from his teachers or anyone else.

"Charms, obliviators, and such. The Death Eater's themselves were good at clean-up's, and there were a few thousand of  _ them  _ , along with sympathizers to their cause, who thought that a rigid caste system with muggles and muggle borns on the bottom and treated as cattle was a good idea. That is why they were so hard to get rid of. They could lead a perfect guerilla war, as they could move around in minutes, and their supporters difficult to weed out." The witch rattled this out without seeming to take a breath. Harry was impressed, though the information was terrifying.

"That sounds horrible!"

"It was. Thankfully, their only method of certain identification and any communication was destroyed by the depowerement of Voldemort, and they quickly fell apart."

"How do you  _ know  _ all this?"

"I take maths, geography and both magical and non-magical history. Me and my friends, with the help of our teachers, decided to see what could have been. Calculations, calculations and yet more calculations. And research. Lots of that." The girl smiled. "Anyway, if you want some good books on Magical History, wait until you get to Hogwarts. There are comprehensive notes on many aspects of History, that have been written and are updated by students in the last 15 years, as well as an extensive library. Oh, sorry, have to go. See you in Hogwarts!"

The girl ran off, leaving Harry both stunned by this influx of information, but also in a thoughtful state of mind. Then he smiled, turned away from the history section, and instead went to the potions, herbology and magical creatures section, hoping to find books with good illustrations.

After about an hour, he left with seven more books, three on magical creatures, three on herbology, and one on ingredient preparation that he found tucked away behind other books in the second-hand section. Outside, he realised that it was quite late, and that he should probably return to the Leaky Cauldron.

Having eaten his dinner, Harry decided that he was really tired, and so he fell asleep. Thankfully, he had no nightmares.

  
  
  


Over the next few weeks, Harry spent most of time in thei-hi-no, damn it! No Dursely’s, so no more need for lying.  _ Their _ room, reading the books, eating, learning to write with a quill, learning spells, talking to Namara, or as they nicknamed her, 'Hedwig', or sleeping. They discovered that if they kept his elder wand under his pillow, the nightmare, even if present, was usually muted and vague, and they now rarely woke up with mysterious injuries, though they still got very little rest from his sleep. Their talks with Namara turned into history lessons on the owl and wolf clans around the world and their history, though of course Namara knew the most about her own clan. Their histories and legends were fascinating, and both similar and very different to human legends, as owls valued not money or riches, but courage, honour and loyalty, and only cared about territories, in terms of material possessions.

They had also bought and read some books on magical healing and divination, a few days after the first shopping trip, to research their problem with dreams, but they contained no mentions of anything like their problems. After that, disappointed with the lack of information on his most annoying health issue, they went to the wizarding shop that sold glasses. There, he got the right prescription glasses that had square frames, and were enchanted with night vision.

Harry got the enchantment so that they could explore the school at night, and they even learned a silencing spell, so that they could walk around the school unheard. Rules like curfew were for idiots. Well, not idiots, but they wanted to be able to explore.

 

Soon, however it was already the first of September. Harry woke up at five, checked that they had packed everything, told Namara that she could fly to Hogwarts herself if she wanted (she wished him luck and flew off), and went down to eat breakfast. They, along with a couple of other students staying at the inn, were apparated to the station at 9:00 by Tom.

Harry gazed at the crimson train in wonder, before shaking their head and thinking about what he should do next. Harry did not know the other students, and as they were all significantly older than them, they decided not to approach them.

Instead, they went to the backmost carriage and sat in the furthest compartment. They had heard people in the Alley talking about "Harry Potter", and decided that their attention was not worth attracting.

When they first arrived, the platform had been mostly empty, but as time passed, it became more and more filled up with children and parents, trolleys and pets, as well as steam, until it was hard to see any empty space.

At 11:00, the doors closed and the train started its journey to Hogwarts. As it departed, there was ping, and a letter appeared in the air before Harry. They snatched it from the air. On it was written 'Timetable for Harry James Potter - please discuss this with older students before filling out.’ Before Harry could open it, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!" Harry called.

A freckled, red-haired boy nervously opened the door.

"Sorry to bother you, but… Could I sit with you? Most of the other compartments with first years are almost full, or don't want me there, and I don't want to sit with my  _ brothers _ ." He groaned the last word. 

"Sure.” Harry could tell the boy was being honest, though they was not sure how they knew. Just… a feeling.

"Thanks. Well since  _ you  _ don't recognise me on sight, I can finally introduce myself to somebody. I'm Ron Weasley. Magical born and raised, and blood traitor to the end, and have five elder brothers." Ron rattled off, as he sat down across from Harry.

"I'm Harry Potter. Magical born and Muggle-raised." Harry was pleased that Ron only nodded at that, instead of barraging them with questions.

"Sorry." Ron suddenly winced.

"Why?"

"Well… I started off talking about my family… and yours, well…"

Harry was surprised by the other boy's apology, and decided that they liked the other boy.

"It's alright I don't really remember them. You said you had five brothers?"

"Bill, Charlie, Perfect Prefect Percy, Fred and George. And a younger sister, Ginny."

"Are they all at Hogwarts?"

"No, only Percy, Fred and George. Bill graduated already and works as a cursebreaker, and Charlie works as a dragon tamer in a Romanian Reserve. Ginny isn't old enough to attend. Thanks to their jobs, Mum could buy me a new wand, instead of giving me Bill's old one. See? Cedar and unicorn hair."

Harry could see that Ron was obviously itching to talk, and guessed that being stuck with the same people all the time must be very stressful. Harry was stuck with the Dursley’s, but they didn’t talk to them.

"I have an elder wand, with phoenix and raven core."

Ron frowned. "Elder? Really? Huh."

They talked about Ron's family for a bit more (“An accountant? Really?” “Yeah, he’s crazy smart.”), before somebody else knocked on the door. "Come in!" Harry and Ron said in unison.

The door opened and they saw a girl with bushy brown hair and a slightly pudgy boy with dark hair, with their trunks behind them.

"Can we come in? We don't want to sit by ourselves…"

Harry and Ron nodded. The two newcomers dragged their trunk inside, and sat down.

"I'm Hermione Granger." said the girl. She was a little shorter than Harry, they guessed.

"I'm Neville Longbottom." the boy introduced himself.

"I'm Harry Potter, and that is Ron Weasley."

"Are you really? I've read 'everything' about you, and it really makes no sense. They say you killed Voldemort, but they don’t say how, and they said your parents died and you have a lightning bolt scar, though how they know I have no idea, there are are no photos or apparent precedent for that or anything. All the books contradict, and there no interviews or anything." The girl said, a bit snottily, and  _ all  _ in one breath.

"It's all made up, from what I had read." Harry replied.

"Yeah, thought so. Anyway, do either of you know what this letter is about?" Hermione brandished a letter that she was holding in her hand.

"Oh, that. Well, in Hogwarts, you have the main subjects, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts, but there are also extra subjects that you could take, some of them Muggle, that you sign up for yourself.

The Muggle ones also allow you to take the Muggle Exams, and you could apply for a University if you pass the test. Some wizards go to Cambry  and Oxridge or whatever after finishing Hogwarts, if they want to." Ron said.

"Really? McGonagall said nothing about that!" Hermione exclaimed. "My parents wanted me to go there once I finished school."

"That's because the teachers want the students to make their own choices. Some of the subjects are also not exactly  _ official  _ or  _ approved  _ and are led by seventh-year students who have passed the exams, and the Ministry is not supposed to know. There's a secrecy spell involved, I think. I know because my brothers told me all about the options, and gave me advice. You  _ can  _ take everything, but you don't  _ need  _ to. You just need to balance it. Also, it's good to make your schedule the same as some other people's, so that you can study in groups, and find out about the assignments if you miss class." Ron said it as though he was reciting from memory. Everyone gawped at him.

“What? My whole family has been reciting it, and other stuff, all summer. It stuck.”

"So, what other subjects are there?" Harry asked.

"I can't remember off the top of my head, but there should be a list in the envelope. Let me open it." Ron rummaged in his envelope for a few seconds.

"Ah-a! Here it is! The other subjects are French, Mermish, Russian, German, Latin, Greek, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Magic Etiquette, History, Geography, Animagus Transformation. Eh.. Do we want to have the same schedule? I think we might become good friends, or at least we will be able to help each other with homework."

Everyone looked at each other and shrugged. Hermione motioned for Ron to continue, obviously wanting more information.

"Okay. Let's see what I can remember...The are magics cast over these lessons and notes that allow you to remember and absorb the material given better, so that you only need to attend the lesson once a week, and according to Bill, there is not much difference between a double and a single, for some reason. As there are few practicals, you don’t need to practice quite as hard. Really, you just read some stuff, make a few notes, and that’s it. Clear?” Everyone nodded, though Harry privately though it sounded a little like cheating, learning everything by magic. Ron cleared his throat and continued.

“First, French. I think we should take it. If we take Latin as well, it would be easier to learn both. French is useful to know if you travel, or work in Gringotts or high up in the Ministry, and Latin is useful, as the magic system we learn in Hogwarts depends on it."

"I think we should take both. Let me see our schedule, and when we can have Latin and French… I suggest double Latin on Tuesday, after Charms, and French on Thursday, after History of Magic. You agree? Let's make a note, but not on the schedule, in case we need to change." Hermione interrupted, pen in hand. Everyone else nodded, and she jotted it down.

"Now, Mermish could be useful if you tend to be unfortunate and end up in weird situations. We are wizards - I think that should be our job description. Besides, being able to communicate with Magical, sentient beings is always useful. We definitely take it. How does Friday, after potions, sound?" Ron continued. It was also agreed on.

"Russian is useful for the same reason as French, and there is also a large magical society in Russia, with large public libraries."

Hermione looked like she would explode with excitement at the mention of the last word. Harry said, calmly "Calm down, Hermione! Let Ron speak."

"Anyway, knowing the language is always better that a translation spell, and Russian, Japanese and a few other languages translate very badly, too. They are very complex, which makes it hard to get all the layers of meaning across.

"German is not very useful, unless you are into business or something. Translation spells work fine for it, as German is fairly close to English, and with Russian and French under our belt, it will work almost perfectly. I don't think we should take it. Geography is pretty much useless, and Muggle history we can really read up on by ourselves, and sign up for the exams. Math, however, we can not learn by ourselves."

"Greek could also be useful. We don't want to limit ourselves  _ too  _ much, right?" Harry asked Ron.

"Yup. There are some books in Greek about Magical Creatures that can’t be translated, and I really want to read those, especially the ones about dragons. Greeks have studied Magical Creatures since forever.”

Again, everyone agreed. Harry privately thought that they all looked ridiculous, nodding their heads fervently like that. It was just that Ron knew what he was talking about, and spoke with a slight authority that looked like he learned it from someone.

“Now, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, History and Geography are all subjects that we could take exams on for a Muggle University, but according to Charlie, these subjects can come in very useful in magical jobs, too. While it might seem like they contradict magic, and in some parts they do, they can still be very useful, especially if you need to be able to  _ pass  _ as a Muggle.

"Physics is good for battles, since you can maximise the effects of spells like levitation and banishing by calculating the best angle to apply the force from, so that gravity will add extra force to what you intended to happen. It also helps with transfiguration, apparently, and shielding magics and wards, but I have  _ zero  _ idea how.

"Chemistry can be useful for potions, since the non-magical ingredients react the same. Biology is useful for Healing, and Care of Magical Creatures. Besides, being ignorant of Muggles is a bad idea, when they have nukes and such."

Hermione, who had guessed that Ron was a pureblood, and had heard how ignorant the Purebloods generally were, gaped at him.

"Don't look at me as though I turned into a newt! We, my family, have a squib who works as an accountant, and he taught me and my brothers the basics of these subjects, since Dad is so interested in Muggles, and my brothers take a few of those subjects themselves.

"Learning how to become an Animagus, is something we should definitely take. This skill allows you to transform into an animal that represents your personality, and can be very useful. Besides, you get an almost automatic Outstanding Transfiguration NEWT for practical and written for being able to do it, as it requires good knowledge of the theory and practical part. We should be able to achieve the transformation. Hopefully. If we study. Percy, Bill and Charlie managed, and the twins are close, so they could help us out. And... That's it." Ron realised that there were no more subjects.

"I'm not sure I could keep up with the classes..." Neville mumbled.

"We will help you! We will work as a group after all, and I think we are on our way to becoming friends." Hermione said.

"Yeah, Neville. Anyway, we are taking everything except German, right?"

"Yup. And Geography." Ron replied.

"I'll fill out our schedule's then. I'm always good at preventing conflicting times. Harry, Ron, Neville, give me your schedules. I will fill them out." Hermione demanded.

Everyone handed over their things, and stayed quiet as Hermione hummed, and looked over the schedules and the times that the electives were at. Then, she carefully filled in all the schedules. When she finished, the schedules flashed gold, and the ink dried instantly.

After that, they sat in silence for a while, before they heard a great clattering outside, and their door was opened by a smiling woman, with a large trolley full of sweets.

"Anything of the trolley, dears? You are the last ones, so you can take as much as you want.”

Harry looked around, and saw how all the others looked at the trolley, and realised they really wanted the things, but could not get them for some reason. Harry had never had money to afford sweets before, or to share anything, but now they did. They stood up and went into the corridor.

"Some of everything, for everyone, please. I'm paying."

The witch smiled at him, and said "Well, since you are being so nice to your friends, I will give you a discount. Normally, this would all cost about three galleons, total, but I will take two."

Harry handed over three galleons, and the witch took out her wand and simply levitated all the sweets of the top of the trolley on to the trunks that they were using as a table.

"Enjoy your treats!" She said, as she left.

"You shouldn't have!" Hermione exclaimed.

"It's my money. And you are my friends. Come on, let's try these things out."

After a moment of hesitation, the other three started to dig into the pile with Harry.

They had a very good time trying out all the sweets, and especially the Bertie Botts every flavour Beans, challenging each other to eat progressively more suspicious looking beans, and using a bit of a few mint ones they found early on, to get rid of the nasty tastes.

At some point, a blond boy had rudely opened the door without knocking, but when he saw that there were four of them, he frowned and left, with Ron grimacing at his back.

"Who was that?" Harry asked.

"That was Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius I-Am-A-Death-Eater-Who-Bribed-The-Wizengamot Malfoy. Rotten eggs, the lot of them. Blood bigots, without exception. Malfoy Jr might not be entirely rotten yet, but there is no way to get him to go 'good', I don't think. Dad is sure Malfoy Sr is hiding Dark Artifacts in his house, but he still has not got a warrant to search it."

"Is he really that bad?"

"Yup. And if it weren't for scum like him, I would consider going to Slytherin. But with kids like that there? That’s suicide. I have nothing against Slytherin ideals - cunning and ambition are good things, but I’m against Death Eaters. They may present a united front to outsiders, but amongst themselves? It's a raging battlefield, an ongoing war for the 'Top Spot'."

Harry looked curiously at Ron. "You are being very mature about not hating the entire house."

Ron shrugged. "Bill made sure I knew the difference. He spent an entire afternoon hammering it in. Anyway, since none of  _ you  _ have older siblings who went to Hogwarts, here's advice about the other houses. Hufflepuff values uniformity. All schedules are rewritten to look exactly the same, and all notes and homework is shared so that  _ everyone  _ has a high standard of work. A united front is alway shown, and Hufflepuffs protect each other. However, loners and individual people will have a very hard time there, as all Hufflepuffs have to follow a fairly narrow mindset. It allows enough individuality to be your own person, but it reforms you personality so that you always get along with others." Harry thought that the account was probably a little biased, but… Did it matter right now? If the core idea was the same?

"Seriously? They expect us to be identical? And what if we make a very unique observation in our homework? Everyone copies it?" Hermione asked, outraged.

"That's Hufflepuff for you. No one is allowed to charge ahead."

"I am not going there. What about you guys?" Hermione asked the other, who shook their heads in reply.

"Ravenclaw is for the intelligent and creative, which are the most valued qualities there, but they are very bully tolerant, and if you can't stick up for yourself, you will go down, fast."

"That's not what the "Hogwarts, A History" says!"

"Ministry people are dumb. Besides, Hogwarts has changed rapidly in the last thirteen or so years, after a prank from the Marauders, the Gryffindor Pranksters, nearly turned out fatal to a Slytherin, Penny Wight, or something, because they had nothing to fear. They trapped her on top of the Astronomy Tower, and surrounded her with various illusions, and she nearly fell off the edge because she could no longer tell what was real or not. And one student from Ravenclaw nearly committed suicide from an embarrassing prank, which involved most of the clothes being vanished.

"This set of a chain of events that dragged down the other houses, as Gryffindor changed its behaviour basically overnight. The seventh-years put the Tower on lockdown, found and rewrote the Gryffindor student Charter, created a Rulebook and re-elected a Council and Enforcers, to enforce good behavior, and changed the motto and Sorting requirement; instead of "The chivalrous and brave", it’s now "Those who go off the beaten track".

“The sorting puts people in the house with the most like-minded people, with the traits the house exemplifies, and Gryffindor, originally for the brave and hot-headed, became the house for the mediators, the loners, the geniuses, the just and those who are 'remarkable'.

“Gryffindor has very strict rules and punishments for any sort of bullying, but it also allows for the most freedom in how the students behave, as no one is bullied for anything and people can express themselves and be who they are."  _ Well _ , Harry thought,  _ that sounds like a place for us all _ .

"Gryffindor sounds like a really good place. I think I will go there. I was bullied in my old school, I'm a Muggleborn and a loner. I won't fit anywhere else."

"Yeah, it is. I'm going to try to get sorted there."

Harry and Neville thought for a bit, and then nodded, agreeing with Ron.

A couple hours after that, when it was completely dark, they changed, with Hermione, and then the others, going outside the compartment to give privacy to whoever was changing inside the compartment. Soon after, the conductor informed them that they would arrive at the Hogsmeade Station in a few minutes, and to leave the luggage on the train.

The quartet looked at each other, shrugged and then shrunk down their trunks, with Ron saying that his was Charlie's once, and put them in their pockets.

The train slowed down, and then stopped completely. People pushed their way towards the door and onto a tiny platform. The quartet shivered in the cold wind.

Then, they saw a lamp bobbing over the heads of the students and heard a cheerful, deep voice shouting "Fir's-years! Fir's-years over here!"

A big hairy face with beetle black eyes beamed over the sea of the student. "C'mon, come with me. Any more fir's-years? Mind where you step, now. Fir's-years, follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, with Harry's group less so, as his enchanted glasses let him see where he was going, and so lead the others, down the steep, narrow path.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec. Jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"

The narrow, slippery path unexpectedly led to the edge of a great, black lake. Perched atop a mountain on the other side, windows sparkling brightly in the starry, clear sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" The man pointed at a little fleet of boats sitting in the water by the shore. The quartet quickly claimed one for themselves.

"Everyone in? Right then. FORWARD!" The man shouted from his own boat.

At once, all together, the fleet of boats started moving across the surface of the lake, leaving ripples on a surface that was otherwise as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the castle overhead. It seemed higher and higher, as they neared the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" The huge man warned them as the first boats reached the cliff. Everyone bent their heads, and the fleet of little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that covered an opening in the cliff face. They sailed down a dark tunnel, until they reached an underground harbour, and climbed out on to the rocks and pebbles.

Then, following the giant's lamp, they clambered up a passageway, coming out onto a smooth, damp lawn right in front of the castle.

They walked up a flight of smooth stone steps and crowded around the huge oak door.

The giant raised a huge fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

  
  
  
  



	6. The Sorting

Immediately, the door swung open. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald robes, that Harry recognised as Professor McGonagall, stood there.

"The fir's-years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. As the students entered, Harry saw that the Entrance Hall was big enough to comfortably hold Dursleys’ house. There were flaming torches on the walls, and the ceiling was too high to make out properly. There was also a magnificent marble staircase that led them to the upper floor.

They followed Professor McGonagall into a small, empty chamber off the hall, passing by a doorway behind which Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices - all the other students must have already arrived.

"Welcome to Hogwarts." said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but first you must be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting Ceremony is very important, as while you are at Hogwarts, your House will be your family. You will usually eat at their table, and sleep in the dormitories of your House. The House-rules will apply only to the members of the House, so you must learn them.

"The four Houses are Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, named after the four founders of the school. Each House has a long and respectable history and has produced exemplary witches and wizards.

"There is point system, where students can earn or lose points for their House, and at the end of the year, the House with the most points wins an extended curfew - an extra hour and a half - for next year for every member of the house.

"The Sorting Ceremony will begin in a few minutes and take place before the entire school. I suggest that you tidy yourselves up and try not to get overstressed." She left, saying, "I will return when we are ready for you. Please, wait quietly."

Harry realised they did not know how the students are sorted into Houses. As he looked around, they saw that everyone else looked very nervous, too. A girl with reddish gold skin and short curling horns was nervously chewing her nails, while a dark haired boy with bright silver eyes picked at his sleeves.

"Ron, do you know how students are sorted?"

"Do we need to perform spells and such?" Hermione worried her lip.

"I don't know exactly, but according to Charlie, you don't need to actually do anything. They would not say what it is exactly, as it is a tradition not to say anything. Fred did say something about wrestling trolls this morning, but I think he was joking."

The quartet shifted nervously where they stood. The mysterious Sorting Ceremony made them uneasy. All the other students were also quiet, and very visibly nervous.

Then, something happened that distracted everyone from the approaching Ceremony. Harry jumped about a foot in the air, and several people behind them screamed.

About twenty ghosts, pearly white and transparent, drifted into the room through the wall near the back, paying no attention to the students, and arguing.

"I say we give him another chance! He could be genuine this time, you never know." A fat little monk said to his companions.

"We have given him multiple chances already, dear Friar. He is besmirching our reputation, and you know he is not really even a ghost. I say, what are you all doing here?" The ghost in the ruff directed the question to the students.

"It's the start of term, Sir Nicholas. I suppose these are first years, waiting to be sorted." The ghost of a young woman said softly. Now talking to the students, she said "I am the Grey Lady, and I used to go to Ravenclaw. It's a wonderful place for those who want to learn."

"Move along now. The Sorting Ceremony is about to start." Professor McGonagall had returned. The ghosts floated away through a wall, and Harry guessed that they had now joined the older students in the hall.

"Please from a line and follow me." Professor Mcgonagall told the first years.

Feeling oddly as though their legs had turned to water, Harry got into line behind a boy with dark brown hair, with Ron, Neville and Hermione standing behind them, and they walked out of the chamber, across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never even imagined such a mysterious and magnificent place. Thousands of candles floated in the air above the four tables, which were covered with glittering golden plates and goblets students, behind which all the other students sat. At the other end of the Hall, there was another table, clearly for the teachers. Professor McGonagall led them there, and they came to a halt, facing the students, with their backs to the teachers. The seated students looked at them with mild curiosity, and to escape the sight, Harry looked upwards, and gasped. There appeared to be none, and it seemed that they sat under the open sky!

Then he heard Hermione quietly whisper "It's enchanted to be transparent, so that we can always see the sky, according to  _ Hogwarts: A History  _ ."

Harry quickly looked down as Professor McGonagall silently set down a four-legged stool in front of the first-years, and then carefully placed, an old, very tattered looking, patched and frayed, wizard's hat on it. Harry was sure that Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the neighbourhood.

Noticing that all the students were staring at the hat, Harry stared at it too. In a couple of moments a rip, near the brim, opened wide, like a mouth, and the hat began to sing.

" _ You may not think I'm pretty,  _

_ But don't judge by what you see  _

_ I have more character and brains,  _

_ Your hat can't compare to me.  _

_ I swear that I will choke to death  _

_ If you find a smarter hat that stands tall,  _

_ For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat  _

_ And I am older than them all.  _

_ There's no secret in your head  _

_ The Sorting Hat can't see.  _

_ So put me on and I will know  _

_ In which house you ought to be.  _

_ Perhaps it is in Ravenclaw,  _

_ Where dwell the curious and clever  _

_ Who study all that they can see,  _

_ For whom mysteries are breakfast  _

_ And enigmas, lunch.  _

_ Maybe it is in Slytherin,  _

_ That you will feel at home in,  _

_ Among cunning folk  _

_ Who will happily use any means  _

_ To achieve their hidden ends.  _

_ It could be in Hufflepuff,  _

_ The home of those who're loyal,  _

_ Who present a united front, are unafraid of toil,  _

_ That you should really be.  _

_ Or maybe even Gryffindor,  _

_ That you will be happiest of all.  _

_ The home of those with hidden depths and gifts,  _

_ Who have courage deep within them all,  _

_ And know what is right and wrong.  _

_ So put me on! Don't be afraid!  _

_ For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat  _

_ And never have been wrong. “ _

Everyone burst into applause at the end. Harry was rather impressed - the song would not have won any awards at a singing contest, but again, a hat composing a song at all was remarkable. The hat inclined it's top to each of the four tables, and the Hall grew quiet again.

Professor McGonagall stepped forward now.

"As I call out your name, please come forward and put on the sorting hat. Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink faced-girl with blond pigtails and short black curling horns stumbled out of line and put on the hat, which fell right over her eyes, and sat down. A moment passed, and then the hat shouted

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

The table on the right cheered, as Hannah took of the hat and went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table.

"Barnal, Lucy!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat shouted again, and Lucy scuttled down to sit next to her friend, and she was soon followed there by Susan Bones.

"Boot, Terry!" became a Ravenclaw, and so did "Brocklehurst, Mandy."

"Brown, Lavender!" was the first Gryffindor, causing the table on the far left to explode with cheers, and "Bulstrode, Millicent!" became the first Slytherin.

And so the Sorting went on. Harry noticed that some Sortings took longer than others, and he wondered if something would go wrong and they would just sit there for ages, looking like an idiot, or not be chosen at all. After all, for what House did they  _ really _ qualify?

Harry decided to distract themselves from those unpleasant thoughts by paying more attention to the sorting. He noticed that all the Gryffindors took much longer to sort than the others, and the Hufflepuffs taking the least time.

Soon it was Hermione's turn. The moment the hat touched her head it shouted "GRYFFINDOR!" without any hesitation, and when Neville was sorted soon after, he was also immediately proclaimed a Gryffindor.

Another nine students were sorted before it was Harry's turn, but it eventually did come.

"Potter, Harry!"

The hall immediately went quiet, and then whispers broke out, as all the students strained their necks in an attempt to see the "Boy-Who-Lived". Harry quickly went over to the stool, and put the hat down on their head. It immediately fell down over their eyes as they sat down, the last thing they saw being the students craning their heads to get a good look at him.

"This is very interesting, Mr Potter." Harry heard a quiet voice say in their ear. "You certainly have plenty of courage, cunning and curiosity, and can work hard, so maybe Slytherin... but what is this? You have almost no ambition! No, Slytherin is not for you… Perhaps Hufflepuff? No, that is a bad fit as well… You are too individual for them, you don't seek to be liked by everyone… So it's either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw… Let's see deeper… What's this?..."

"Excuse me Mr Hat? What's wrong?"

"Well, you seem to have a 'wall' in your head that is keeping many memories repressed, and span a longer time than you have existed, and I would have said that they are somebody else's, but I have a feel that they are, indeed, yours. I would advise, however, not to try to unlock them. Your nightmares are parts of those memories leaking through, and whatever the memories contain, it's very unpleasant."

"Thank you for the advice, Mr Hat."

"You are quite welcome, Mr Potter. Now, I think 'hidden depths' is something you have plenty of, so better be GRYFFINDOR!" Harry could tell the last part was shouted to the entire Hall. They took the hat off, and then went to sit with Neville and Hermione. There were only eight students left.

Ron was one of the last ones to be sorted, and he was also immediately sorted into Gryffindor. After that there were only two more students, and then the Sorting Ceremony ended. As Harry looked at the golden plates, they realised they were quite hungry. The sweets seemed years ago.

The headmaster, who Ron had told Harry was named Albus Dumbledore, got to his feet. He was smiling at his students, as though there was no sight that could make him happier than seeing all of them together.

"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome, to a new year at Hogwarts! For those who have returned, welcome back! Before we begin, I would like to say a few words: Oddments! Enigmas! Plans! Order!"

The students clapped as he sat back down. An older redhead, who Harry assumed was related to Ron turned to the first years and said "Each of the seemingly random words are actually each related to one house. Oddments are for us, Enigmas are for Ravenclaws, Plans are for Slytherins, and Order is for Hufflepuffs. By the way, I am Percy, the fifth-year Gryffindor prefect. Now, tuck in! You all can eat as much as you want."

Harry turned to look at the table, and their mouth fell open in shock. They had never seen so much food, let alone be allowed to eat so much. There was roast beef, and roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages of every type imaginable, boiled, roasted and mashed potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, fresh vegetables, ketchup, and for some strange reason, mint humbugs.

The Dursleys had often denied Harry all the food they could, and whenever Harry managed to acquire food themselves, he had to hide it from Dudley as he would have taken it away and eaten it, even if it made him sick. Harry took a bit of everything, except the humbugs. It was all delicious.

"That does look very good." said the ghost in the ruff sadly.

"Can't you eat?" asked Hermione.

"I have not eaten for over 400 years. I don't need to, of course, but one does miss the taste."

"What's your name?" Harry asked.

"I am Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, the resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower, more commonly known as Nearly Headless Nick, and prefer to be addressed as Sir Nicholas."

"Nearly Headless? How can you be  _ nearly  _ headless?" interrupted a boy by the name of Seamus Finnegan, who was sitting on Neville's left side.

Sir Nicholas sighed, and then seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung of his head as though on a hinge, only holding on by about an inch of ghostly skin and muscle.

All the first years made noises of disgust, as the older years laughed at their expressions.

"Now, I hope you lot will help Gryffindor win the House Cup? We have not won the championship for the last six years - Slytherin has gotten it for the last six years in a row! The Slytherin Ghost, The Bloody Baron, has become almost unbearable. And no, I  _ don't  _ know how he got covered in blood."

Harry looked over at the Slytherin table, and saw a creepy looking ghost, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face and robes stained with silver blood, sitting next to the blond kid Harry saw on the train earlier, who did not look pleased with the sitting arrangements.

When everyone had eaten their fill, the remains of the food disappeared to be replaced with desserts. Ice-cream, pies, tarts, doughnuts and sweets of every kind covered the table. After a moment of inaction, attempting to comprehend what they were seeing, Harry started piling their plate with everything they could reach, completely leaving the conversation.

As they stopped their frantic attack on the food, and started to pay attention to the conversation again, they heard that it had turned to families.

"I'm half and half. My mom's a witch. Dad didn't take it too well when he found out. It was a bit of a nasty shock for him." Seamus said.

"I'm Muggleborn. My parents are dentists." said Hermione,

"What about you, Neville?"

"Well, my gran brought me up, and she is a witch. I don't know if I have any squib or muggle relatives. I was thought to be a squib, and my great-uncle Alphard had wanted to try scaring the magic out of me, but my gran put her foot down. My magic finally showed itself when I was seven, and the plants in our greenhouses were dying. I accidently brought them back, and then made them grow very big. We had to get new greenhouses, as the plants resisted any and all forms of cutting."

Everyone laughed.

Soon, the feast was over, and Dumbledore dismissed them, but not before warning them that any who went into the third-floor corridor would suffer a horrible death, and that they should not try to get past the locked door, and that the forest was forbidden at night, that no one was to go further than 50 feet inside, that Filch the caretaker had a list of Forbidden Items on the door to his office, and Quidditch try-outs would be held in the second week of term.

Percy led the first years along staircases and corridors full of talking and moving portraits, all the while narrating where they were going "That's the Transfiguration classroom over there!" and "The charms corridor is in that direction, but you don't need to remember it now. The schedules will have a map appear on the back to lead you to the next class."

Soon they arrived at a portrait of a very fat woman in a very frilly pink dress.

"Password?" she said.

"Semper Verus" Percy said. Turning to the First Years he added "It mean 'always just' in Latin."

As he said this, the portrait swung open to reveal an entrance into a very large circular room. The walls were hung with various tapestries depicting various landscapes, with gold and red being the most prevalent colours. The ceiling was very high. The floor was completely covered by multiple carpets in oranges and yellows, though there was a green patch by one of the windows. There was a large fireplace, multiple chairs, armchairs and sofas in various browns, golds and reds scattered throughout the room. There were also multiple bookshelves along another wall, with all the shelves full of books and notes on the various subjects, both those studied at school, and those that were extra, and a door nearby labeled "More Books Here". There were also two staircases, further away, labeled "Boy Dormitories" and "Girl Dormitories". There was also a third door, but it appeared to be sealed and was unlabeled.

Then, one figure stood up from an armchair by the fire.

"Welcome to Gryffindor, First-Years. My name is Clara Lewis, and I am the current Leader of the Gryffindor Council, or, as the position is called by the other Houses, Gryffin Queen.

"Each House has it's own rules for the students, on top of the school rules, and the Houses also treat breaking House Rules more seriously. In Gryffindor, unlike in the other Houses, we have more than three or four rules, the reason for which you can read in the "Risen", a history of our House in the last fifteen years, which you can find in our library.

"In Gryffindor, you are not allowed to bully, discriminate, steal, harm, slander or otherwise cause any physical or psychological harm to other students. All pranks have to abide by those rules.

"You are not allowed to engage in any conflicts with people in other houses, unless they start fighting first.

"You are not allowed to interfere in the dealings of other Houses.

"Breaking these rules will result in severe repercussions, organised and dealt out by the Gryffindors chosen as the Enforcers.

"Additionally, in Gryffindor, unofficially, we do not keep to the curfew and the list of forbidden items, unless they are Dark, or the Forbidden Forest rules, as long as that does not place anyone in danger. We do not report this, so as long as the members of the other Houses or the teachers don't catch you, you're fine.

“Thank you for listening. Please ask the Prefects for more details if something is unclear, or consult the Charter and Rulebook. Good night." The girl nodded at Percy, and then climbed the staircase that led to the girl’s dormitories.

"Well, you have now meet our esteemed Gryffin. Anyway, the girls are to the left, the boys to the right. Your year gets the highest dormitories there are, outside the monitored ones. Good night." Percy also left.

Ron, Neville and Harry said good-night to Hermione and went up the staircase in search of their dormitory. They had to climb seven flights of stair before they reached their room. Harry hesitated a little. Boy dormitories? But… It wasn’t like there would be another option for them, so… They went.

Harry's first impression of the room was that it was huge. The ceiling must have been 10 feet high, and the room was about 50 feet across, and circular. There were five beds with deep-red velvet curtains, and five sets of all the furniture a student could need. The room was mostly in soft red and gold colours, with all the wood being honey-brown. Harry assumed the room was so big because of magic.

Harry picked the bed furthest away from the door, unshrunk his trunk and unpacked it, and then changed into their pyjamas. They were very tired and the moment they let their head fall on the pillow, (after they had closed their curtains and cast a silencing charm on them that they learned over summer and took off his glasses), they fell asleep.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I composed parts of the song, but a part of the lyrics are from the book.


	7. The Mysterious Incident of the Burn

Harry woke up at exactly 6 in the morning. They had woken up because they just could not sleep any longer, and decided that this was a perfectly acceptable time to get up, as breakfast, according to the timetable would begin in fifteen minutes, and lessons in two and a half hours.

He opened his curtains, to see that Neville and Ron were climbing out of their own beds too, though Ron was less getting out of bed, and more sliding off it, feebly moving his hands. Deciding that Ron was awake enough to get off the floor by himself without falling asleep again, Harry prepared for their day. It took them fifteen minutes to be ready up to the point of packing the bag. Neville and Ron took another five minutes, and by that time Harry had packed all their textbooks into the feather-light, bottomless school bag that he decided to buy on the last of August. They had also packed several rolls of parchment, notebooks, quills and fountain pens. Neville and Ron, with normal bags, only packed the Textbooks for Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts. All in all, it took them just half an hour to get ready, and come down stairs, where they saw Hermione examining the bookshelves.

“Good morning, Hermione.” Harry said.

“Good morning to Harry, Ron, Neville. How did you sleep?”

“Well enough.” Ron yawned widely after saying that. “C’mon, let’s find our way to the Great Hall. The Gryffindor schedules only provide us maps if we need to get to lessons, or it’s nearing curfew. It’s supposed to make us more eager to explore and remember the layout for the castle.” Harry thought it was remarkable that Ron could say that, while looking like he was still asleep.  

It took the quartet nearly twenty minutes to find the Great Hall, mostly because the staircases kept moving around. In the end, however, they arrived, wide awake, in the Great Hall. It was surprisingly full of students, with about 10 of them already eating breakfast, and almost empty of teachers, considering the time: 7:00 in the morning.

On second glance, Harry realised that eight of the students were Gryffindors, and the two others being Ravenclaws. The only teachers present were Professor McGonagall and a female Professor in thin, square rimmed glasses, dressed in midnight blue robes. Both of them seemed to be reviewing stacks of paper, that Harry assumed to be schedules, as lessons had not started yet, and it would make sense for the teachers to review who they would be teaching, and when.

The quartet sat down at the end of the table nearest to the teachers, where most of the other Gryffindors present were. When they looked at the Gryffindors closer, they realised they were all vacantly staring into space and slowly shoveling food into their mouths. As there was near absolute silence, the first years shrugged and began to slowly and quietly eat breakfast, also staring into space. About half an hour later, when several more Ravenclaws and most of the Gryffindors joined their respective tables, the Gryffindors sitting close to the quartet finally spoke.

“So, firsties, what lessons do you have today?” asked one of the female students. She had bleached-blonde hair, and one gold and one brown eye.

“Transfiguration, DADA, Biology, Russian and Animagus study.” Hermione replied.

“Busy schedule, huh? Anyway, since you are my fellow Housemates, I guess I should give you advice on the teachers. Right… Transfiguration is taught by McGonagall. She is strict, but fair. DADA… Well, there is a curse on the job, so no decent teachers have graced our ‘hallowed halls’ in ages. You’ll be better off reading the textbook, and the Class Notes instead of listening to the teacher. If the teacher is oblivious enough, spend the lesson reading, or napping under a Notice-Me-Not.”

“Are you serious?” Harry asked.

“Very. Now, Biology and Russian are taught through recorded lectures that you listen to, as well as through notes. It’s sort of a study session, with occasional tests, and you can ask the teachers for help. The seventh year Ravenclaws teach languages, and seventh year Gryffindors teach sciences.” The student turned her head. “Oi, Rory! You and I teach Bio today, right? And Edward and Eric teach Russian?”

“Yes Rose.” Answered the boy named Rory, gazing mournfully into his cup of what might have been coffee. Might not have been.

“Rory wants to be a Healer, and I took the subject just because. In class, just address us as Rory and Rose. Also, each week who teaches what changes, as some people have more or less homework to complete, and sixth years sometimes take over. Ace, Roy and Amy, as well as Marina can teach Bio. And..”

Amy’s was voice was drowned out by by the sound of many voices and footsteps filling the hall. The first years turned to the entrance of the hall just in time to see a mass of people enter, all wearing Hufflepuff colours, and sit down at their table.

Almost immediately afterwards, a second group, comprised of Slytherins and just as large as the first, entered and sat down at their table.

“They do that every weekday, though on weekends they spare us the interruption to conversations.” Rory said, sighing. “I suggest you go look for your class. It’s going to get noisy here soon. We are leaving too.”

Harry noticed, as they, Ron, Neville and Hermione stood up, that most of the Gryffindors who had finished eating were appearing to rapidly vacate the hall, leaving the table almost deserted. Shrugging, they and his friends followed suit.

They spent the next twenty minutes looking for their Transfiguration classroom without using their maps. They discovered, to their horror, that not only the staircases moved, but they were littered with trick steps and prone to changing their minds, that some doors were not doors at all, but simply walls pretending to be doors, and some doors required passwords, and some refused to open twice, and some refused to let anyone pass unless somebody ran into it once. Or twice. What they  _ had  _ managed to find were two secret passageways behind portraits, the Charms Classroom, the Arithmancy Classroom, a group of Ravenclaws going down for breakfast, a huge painting of very drunk friars, a painting of a grassy field with a grazing pony, and they only stopped searching when they nearly collided with Professor McGonagall, who took pity on them and quickly led them to the classroom. By the time they got there, it was already 8:25, and almost time for class.

The quartet seated themselves in the very front of the class, as they agreed that being able to see the board and demonstrations properly would be very beneficial. Harry sat with Hermione, and Ron sat with Neville. Soon after they arrived, other first-year students began to enter the room. By face, Harry only recognised his fellow Gryffindors, and a couple of the Hufflepuffs. He couldn’t remember the names at all.

Most of the class arrived right on the dot, though a couple Ravenclaws ran in, a minute or so late, and very out of breath.

“Good morning class. Miss Turpin, Miss Li, I will let you off without consequences for being late as this is your first time, but in future, unexcused lateness will result in a loss of points.

"Now, let us begin with an overview of this class and what I expect of you. Transfiguration is the most dangerous branch of magic that you will be learning this year, and I will endeavour to teach you it in a safe manner. Any foolish behaviour will result in you permanently being banned from this class. You will leave and not com back. Unfortunately, every year at least one student will be forbidden from the further study of Transfiguration. I hope that none will be this year.” She eyed them sternly.

“Now, today, during the course of this class, I will separate out those who can do the additional Advanced course and those who do the normal course on Wednesdays.

"First, I will introduce the most important rules of transfiguration. Write them down, please.” Professor McGonagall waited for them to get out their writing utensils and what to write on, before she continued.

“The first rule of transfiguration: All standard transfigurations fail, unless you have sufficient power and skill to cast a permanent transfiguration, which is only studied in advanced fourth and fifth years, and all sixth and seventh years. Years may pass, or it may be only hours, depending on your power. Some types last almost indefinitely, some don’t.

"The second rule of transfiguration: You must never impermanently transform anything into food, drink, or anything edible! The transfiguration will revert, and will kill the drinker/eater!

"The third rule of transfiguration: If a transfigured item is burned or reduced to dust, the transfiguration fails, but it will simply become absolutely harmless ashes and smoke. Inhaling it is still unsafe, as with all smoke!

"The third rule of transfiguration: do not transfigure living things into non-living things, without giving them a special potion, which you don’t have! They will suffer permanent damage.

"The fifth rule of transfiguration: Living things transfigured out of non-living things are not really alive. They have no true minds or experiences.” Professor McGonagall wrote down each rule as she said it, and then paused for a bit, to allow students to write it down.

After that, she gave a short lecture on how a simple inanimate-to-inanimate transformation worked, and explained in detail what happened to the matchstick, as well as the spell incantation and spell motions themselves.

“Now, I will give you a matchstick. Your job is to transfigure it into a needle. You have half an hour. ”

Harry had not tried any transfigurations before, as the books had warned that it was dangerous. None of his friends had tried, either. So, they decided to try it by themselves for the first ten minutes, and then try to figure out a solution together, if they did not succeed.

First Harry simply did the wand motions and words. It failed. Then they tried again, just in case. It still did not work. Okay, there was more to transfiguration than waving their wand and saying magic words. Technically, they had already known that. Then, they tried the transfiguration with the information from the lecture firmly fixed in his head. That had succeeded as much as the previous attempts. No one else had managed to achieve anything either.

They decided to think, and came to a theory on what they should concentrate on when doing the spell. If transfiguration was a change, they should not try to will the matchstick to be replaced by the needle, they should will the matchstick to undergo a specific process, that had the end result of the matchstick turning into a needle. Right. Self delusion might work.

They tried again, picturing the process, and this time, they saw that the match went slightly silvery. Emboldened by their success he tried again, clearing their mind of other thoughts, and now most of their match turned into a needle. After several more attempts, he managed to fully transfigure his match into a needle.

As he looked around, he realised that the ten minutes before idea-sharing was almost up. Neville’s and Ron’s matches had become distinctly pointed and silver, while Hermione’s was also a perfect needle. Before he could ask Neville and Ron whether they wanted help, they also succeeded.

“Well done, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Mr Longbottom, Ms Granger. 5 points each for successfully completing the task in such a short time. You can all come to the Advanced sessions.” Professor McGonagall said from behind Harry. “You may go to next class now. You will need the time to get to your next classroom, if you had such problems finding this one.” She smiled slightly. “The Defence against the Dark Arts classroom is one floor beneath this one, and faces the Black Lake. Off you go.”

The quartet quickly packed up and left, discussing the task they completed.

“I visualised the transformation happening. What about you?” Harry said, as they walked down a staircase.

“I simply willed it. It was kind of difficult, but I was kind of making it… do what I want.” Ron replied.

“I focused on how it worked, that’s what the book said we should. And what about you, Neville?”

“I imagined mine transforming from the center and outwards, like ripples on a lake.”

“We all have different methods… Why do they all work? It doesn’t make sense!” Hermione said.

“Maybe we all access and use magic slightly differently, depending on our personality and who we are. We are different people, so why can’t our magic work slightly differently? After all we all learn to write, but we all have different handwriting.” Neville replied.

“That could be it… I’ll think about it. Now, let’s find the classroom and NOT get lost.” Hermione said.

They did not get nearly as lost as in the morning, and managed to successfully find their way to the DADA classroom - though that could have been because they were using the schedule-map. They got there just as the bell to signal the end of Transfiguration rang.

Harry led them in the room, and they all took the seats at the back of the class, and closest to the door. Harry sat with Ron this time, and Hermione sat with Neville.

The lesson turned out to be a disaster. The teacher, Professor Quirrell, a pale trembling man wearing a purple turban,  stuttered so badly that no one could understand a word in the beginning. He could barely make himself heard, and the strange smell permeating the room did nothing to help the students concentrate. Strangely, whenever Harry and Quirrell made eye-contact, Harry’s scar twinged slightly, and they felt like sneezing. That did not happen too often though, as Harry avoided looking at Quirrell, and Quirrel mostly stared at the floor, his book or the board.

After that came a free period, during which Hermione decided to drag them to the History classroom “just to see”. The lesson was held in a series of interconnected classrooms with lots of couches and tables, on each of which stood a crystal screen, each area silenced so as not to disturb the other students. The students could select a lecture they would study for the lesson, with a list of ones they needed to complete given to them by Professor Summers. A ‘lecture’ consisted of a voice coming from the screen reciting and explaining notes and images appearing on the screen. Professor Summers would walk around the classrooms to check that all the students were not disturbing each other.

The quartet learned that students could come and go as they pleased if they did not sign up, but were not allowed to disturb the official students.

Harry realised, twenty minutes after Hermione dragged them to a couch and they proceeded to listen to an interesting lecture on the history of formation of England, why this teaching method was allowed for the non-magical electives. Since it ‘took up time’ only those that actually wanted to learn would come here, and thus not disturb the others. Also, as all the student could go at their own pace and work in different places, there was no need or opportunity for conflict. As they would learn later, all the magic-less optionals were the same, except high level chemistry and biology, where they could do experiments.

Harry, Ron, Neville and Hermione decided it was fun and worth doing again if they had no homework, as they just needed to sit, listen, and watch the diagrams on the screens. And make fun of all the weird names and gross habits of ancient nobles.

After a nice long lunch, the quartet went outside for a walk, and then returned to the castle for Biology, which was held in one of the east Towers, and taught just the same as History. Harry found it to be very interesting, and so did the others, as the lecture they listened to was about cells and what living things were made up of. The main differences between Biology and History were that the teachers were students, and the teacher-students, Rose and Rory, walked among the tables and gave their own advice and information, because “You can’t put  _ everything  _ in a lecture, something is  _ always  _ forgotten.” They found out chemistry, physics and mathematics would also always be taught the same way, by student-teachers, and not actual ones.

Russian was also taught similarly, though they also received a notebook, a smaller notebook for learning to write the letters, a translator/dictionary/grammar grimoire-book (it fit more pages than would normally be physically possible) and workbook, to practice. Additionally, they also drank a potion that would allow them to learn and speak the language faster. Since they were also the only first years learning Russian at this time of day, the Ravenclaw seventh years also went over the material with them to make sure they understood it, at the very end of class, and gave them out the books for French and Mermish, though Mermish only had the grammar and dictionary books.

Then came the last lesson of the day. Animagus Study, which they all had looked forward to the most. As it was a very popular elective, it was taught in the Great Hall, as the older students could revise the theory and meditate by themselves, and those advanced enough could attempt the Transfiguration under the watchful eyes of several different teachers and the school matron. Those that had already achieved the Transformation, mostly sixth and seventh years, helped the third and fourth years with the meditation.

It was also taught by Professor McGonagall, and to their disappointment, the first years found out that for the first year, they would only be learning the theory, and while they could already practice meditation, it would only get seriously covered in the second and third years, and they could only begin attempting the actual transformation once they knew what animal they were.

Dinner came next, and the quartet were very surprised when they noticed just how hungry they were. The conversation only started at the end of the meal, when they were no longer quite as concentrated on stuffing themselves, and when dinner was finished, they all went upstairs, back to their Common Room.

As they walked upstairs, they let Neville go first, as he had a fantastic talent of getting caught in the trick stairs, therefore allowing the others to make note of them. He accepted the role good-naturedly, as he was guaranteed to be pulled out immediately and painlessly, and not be left behind.

On one of the staircases, at the very top, Harry accidently walked into one of the ghosts. This resulted in him nearly falling backwards, and being saved from a nasty fall by Ron and Hermione. As the ghost drifted away, puzzled, Harry desperately blew on the burn mark on their hand, where their bare skin had touched the ghost. It was angry red, and painful, though not particularly bad by Harry’s standards.

Hermione, however, insisted on them finding the Hospital Wing - which they found rather quickly, because a sympathetic portrait of an old witch led them there. When they arrived, they were greeted by Madam Pomfrey, the school matron, who was quite puzzled at why Harry was injured by contact with the ghost. The quartet had decided to leave out the part where Harry had actually crashed into it, as according to both Neville and Ron, ghosts were incorporeal. The witch, however, had managed to heal it with a few waves of her wand, and declared Harry good to go. As they turned to leave, they saw her bend down by one of the beds and on the plaque, with her wand, write Harry’s name.

“Well, Harry, someone seems to think you will be there a lot.” Neville timidly joked as they walked back to the Gryffindor tower. Then he turned serious. “Right, I think we should not tell anyone, and try to discover the reason for you burn on our own.”

“Why not? The teachers could surely help!”

“Hermione… If this got out, people would go mental. Most magicals don’t like weird things, and besides, who would believe us? It could have been a one-time thing, we don’t know yet. There have been other occurrences of wizards who had odd interactions with ghosts, but they are just really, really rare. Besides… Okay, let’s discuss this in the Common Room.” Ron whispered, and Neville nodded, looking serious.

When they got there, they went in a quiet corner.

“So what did you want to say, Ron?” asked Hermione.

“Okay. Keep this quiet. My brother Bill told me, mainly so I could tell you, Harry, since you are the Boy-Who-Lived and therefore likely to have weird things happen to you. And Bill only knows because he had been the Gryffin King, and this secret is passed on between them, to protect and conceal any students to whom odd things happen. Apparently, Dumbledore and the Ministry are very interested in things related to death, ghosts and weird occurrences with Magic in general.” Ron looked at Neville. “Your grandma tell you about the Quibbler Truths?” Neville nodded.

“Artifacts have been going missing. Seers, and anyone with any form of magic-sight, too. It started noticeably after Grindelwald's defeat, but there are traces, suggestions going back to the time when Grindelwald had spent a couple of months here, in Britain, and really, even further back, though in smaller portions. The Quibbler does small articles on this, hidden behind the outrageous ones, to give out any news on anyone or anything missing, and discuss theories.” Neville lowered his voice even lower.

“The Abbott family lived near the Dumbledore family, and are why the Griffins know that Dumbledore was friends with Grindelwald, and they were obsessed with powerful magical items - one of the later Abbots was a Gryffin and he passed the knowledge on.”

“But Dumbledore is good! He defeated Grindelwald! Why would he do anything like that?” asked Hermione, disbelievingly.

“I don’t know, Hermione. I don’t even know if it  _ is  _ Dumbledore, or he is involved with this in anyway. It could be a lot of people, or even an organisation. Besides, Trelawney’s still here, right? And the Sorting Hat, and other stuff. I just suggest that we should be very, very careful. As Percy, our family’s resident Shakespeare expert often says ‘A man can smile, and smile, and be a villain.’”

  
  



	8. A Very Brief Interlude

The week went on, and Harry became truly exposed to what their status as Boy-Who-Lived meant. While the Gryffindors were, on the whole, rather disinterested in poking Harry over the whole affair, the other houses just couldn't seem to quit whispering in the halls when they passed, and they sincerely hoped the novelty would wear off, and  _ soon _ .

“Over there, by the Weasley!”

“Did you see his  _ scar _ ?”

“Did he  _ talk to you _ ?”

On Tuesday they had Charms, taught by tiny but stern Filius Flitwick, who had gotten so excited during the roll, that he fell of the cushions on his chair, which he used to see over the desk. Unlike transfiguration, they were only doing theory, and would continue until late October. Latin, which was afterwards, and Greek which was after lunch were fun but uneventful, and so was Animagus Training.

Wednesday brought Herbology and almost two hours in the greenhouse learning about the properties of Wolf Ivy, and caused as much happiness to Neville as discomfort to Hermione, who did not enjoy digging around in dirt and repotting seedlings. Chemistry did not distinguish itself, though Advanced Transfiguration did, when the needle Neville was supposed to get lion patterns on (They were taught to do specific detailing) turned into a foot long fork with trees on it instead, and received an assignment of writing three inches on what he did wrong and why. He confessed, later, that he was thinking about breakfast and Herbology, which set the quartet off laughing.

Astronomy, Harry thought, was fascinating. They learned not only the position of Mercury at different times of the year, but also of how it affected the more delicate potions and its uses in various ancient and modern rituals, and item-crafting - it was best used in things pertaining to travel and theft, as well as healing. It could enhance the effects of some spells, too, and planets and stars in general tended to affect magic somewhat, though no-one knew quite why, and some spells were completely unaffected.

History of Magic on Thursday was slept through by everyone with the exception of Hermione, who diligently wrote down Professor Binns words, and later confessed that she would probably join them next time. The Wizarding Etiquette lesson in the afternoon had taught them the proper introductions, and was only attended by Ron and Neville because they decided to bring moral support to their friends.

On Friday, however, came the lesson that Harry had been waiting for the most: Potions.

The classroom was in the dungeons, and the students had all filed in talking loudly when Professor Snape had opened the door. The quartet took the front desks, Ron with Harry and Neville with Hermione.

The door slammed behind them, as Professor Snape strode to the front of the classroom to stand in front of the chalkboard, his robes billowing, causing the room to go silent in one second flat.

“There will be no foolish wand waving in my class, apart from the spells necessary to tie up loose sleeves and hair. In this class, I may teach you how to brew fame. Bottle glory. Mix wisdom. Even stop…. Death. Unless you are as idiotic as the usual bunch of dunderheads I acquire every year.” The class drew in a sharp, offended breath, but remained silent.

“Potter!” Snape suddenly turned on Harry. “What will I get if I mix jobberknoll feathers and essence of rosemary?”

Harry thought. They were sure they had read the answer in their book. ‘ _ Rosemary… Rosemary...Oh!’  _ “A basic Memory Draught, sir.”

“Correct. Malfoy, what is the difference between monkshood and aconite?”

“Nothing sir.”

“Correct. Five points to Slytherin. Now, on directions are on the board. Work in partners. You have one and a half hours. When finished, bottle up one sample, leave it on the desk, clean up, and you are free to leave or ask more questions. Begin.”

Harry, who was somewhat disappointed by the lack of any discussions of the instructions and ingredients, nevertheless got on with the task.

An hour of Snape stalking, watching over shoulders and mencing the class later, they and Ron had just finished cleaning up with Neville and Hermione, whose boil-removing potion was just a shade less red than theirs, and were leaving the class together, when there was an explosion in the back on the Slytherin side of the room. They saw that the boy brewing it, Crabbe or Drabbe or something was completely covered in boils now, as was his partner.

The quartet glanced at each other, shrugged and decided to continue going, as Professor Snape swooped down on the boys. They still had Mermish and Mathematics before lunch, and a break  _ now  _ would be very welcome.

They had nothing after lunch, apart from the Charms essay, and Hermione suggested that they get it over with, and then get going on exploring the castle.

 

“I don’t like him very much.” said Hermione, raspily. “He’s… fishy.”

“I’d say slimy, or perhaps  _ batty. _ ” shrugged Ron, who had an even worse rasp. Learning to speak Mermish had one detriment - it was pretty screechy and waily above ground. Tough on the throat.

“What about… greasy?” suggested Neville in a whisper.

“Greasy slimer?” Hermione asked.

“Nah…. Greasy git.” Ron settled.

They were examining a suspiciously blank patch of wall on the fourth corridor. There was just  _ something  _ about it that reeked of a secret passage. Suddenly, a section of it disappeared.

“Greasy git?”

The section reappeared.

“Well. That is a difficult password to guess. Let’s write it down and see where it goes.” Harry suggested after a short, stunned silence.

The passage turned out to lead to the owlery, where Hedwig, to Harry’s disappointment was not present, though as he had asked her to fly around and look for anything interesting, that was unsurprising to him.

  
  



	9. The Unwanted Return

Harry knew that the situation with their nights was too good to be true. They had already been at Hogwarts for two whole weeks, and had two months before that, without a single nightmare. Which was why they had been entirely unsurprised when they woke up just after midnight on their third Monday screaming, back on fire, and thanked the cautious part of their mind that had made them ward their hangings against permitting sound to escape outside.

Stumbling out of bed, their teeth gritted and tears springing to their eyes, grabbing a roll of bandages from under their bed, prepared for any weird or bizarre emergency that may occur, they quietly hurried into the bathroom that was just across the small hall from the dorm room, doing their best not to make a sound caused by the absolutely horrible pain in their back and shoulders. Stripping out of their blood-drenched pajamas, he quickly set about bandaging their back with the aid of the wand and the spells they learned so that they would not actually have to do it by hand if something happened. They caught a glimpse of his back in the mirror - there were two huge ragged rips on their back, barely discernable beneath multiple, uneven, every-which-way scratches.

Having finished bandaging their back, he frowned and cast Scourgify, a spell he learned during summer, to clean everything up. They wasn’t sure why, but there was a strong, niggling part of their mind that did not want others to know about their injuries yet unless they could help it. This was their own problem, and they would deal with it. The blood vanished instantly, and they relaxed, knowing that no one would find out about this problem yet.

Then they returned to bed, magicked it clean as well, and laid down on their front to try to get some more sleep, despite the pain persistently radiating from their back.

When they woke up again, they was  _ tired,  _ and still in pain _.  _ Their limbs felt like lead, and when they checked the time on a watch they bought in Diagon Alley, they realised it was time to get up - it was early for most, but was normal for their quartet. All four of them were used to being up early, from habits gained at home: Harry having to do chores, Ron preventing his brothers from sneaking into his room and pranking him on their way down to breakfast, Neville tending to some delicate and picky plants in his greenhouses, and Hermione simply being an early riser. They could eat whatever they liked in the hall, and nap on the table if they needed more sleep.

Harry dressed, with their back hurting whenever they moved  _ anything _ . they dreaded having to carry the bag, even featherlight, on their back, but they supposed they had to do it, if they did not want to attract attention.

They went down to the common room with Neville and Ron to meet Hermione, as usual, trying to hide their persistent wincing by walking behind them. Thankfully, both they and Hermione were still groggy enough that they all trooped down to breakfast without noticing Harry’s state.

Gazing upon the table, Harry realised that they felt queasy, too, and decided to go for some tea and porridge rather than their usual fried egg, sausage, bacon, toast with marmalade, and variety of chopped vegetables. Their unusual choice led to Hermione raising an eyebrow, but not commenting. Clearly she thought nothing of it.

The stampede of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, which occurred half an hour later, signalled that it was time to leave unless they wanted to remain in a very loud Great Hall, so they did, along with Sally-Anne and Fay Dunbar, fellow classmates. Harry thought they were very nice, but neither they nor his friends spent a lot of time with them, as the two girls were often with Lavender and Parvati, who preferred discussing  _ Witch Weekly  _ and giggling.

As they had arrived early to their first class, as usual, they decided to discuss whether it would be today or Wednesday that Crabbe would finally mess up his work enough to get thrown out of class, as Goyle, Milicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson were; for setting the whole desk and books on fire by not paying attention to the proper incantation, for exploding half the table by just saying the words and swinging the wand every which way, and for transfiguring the match into a molten  _ thing,  _ respectively. McGonagall had been very unhappy, and they had cost Slytherin 20 points, too. As they decided that it would probably happen today, Harry leaned against the wall, suddenly dizzy, on top of being tired, nauseous and in pain. They had the vague feeling that the back and shoulder parts of their robes were somewhat damp, too, and hoped that the blood that had probably soaked through the bandages was not visible to their friends.

When the lesson began, Harry took the utmost care to sit without their back touching the chair. It still hurt like hell, and they had a nasty feeling it would take a long time for it to heal, and they wondered how on earth they were going to survive this without letting anyone know. They frowned as black spots danced on the edges of their vision and shook their head, trying to focus on what McGonagall was saying, but everything seemed so far away… They felt their head falling forward in the table, as everything went pitch black.

They woke up. Everything was blurry. They stretched out their hand, and immediately someone pressed their glasses into it. They put them on, and Hermione’s concerned face came into focus.

They realised he was lying in bed, and their back no longer hurt. They sat up, and looked around.

They were in the hospital wing, Hermione, Ron and Neville sitting on chairs around their bed, and Madam Pomfrey was bustling over to them all, looking worried.

“How are you feeling, Mr Potter?” she asked.

“Fine, Madam Pomfrey.” they replied. “But… What happened?”

“You passed out from blood loss in Transfiguration, Mr Potter. Blood loss from your shredded back. Your professor had shaken you by the shoulders, but when she lifted her hand and her fingers were covered in blood, she brought you here, and asked your friends to come along, to find out whether they knew what happened, or what could have caused your passing out and bloodstained robes.

“I had cast a diagnostic spell to find out what was wrong, which was almost completely scrambled by what I assume was your magic, though I did find the mess on you back. It was resistant to normal spells, but I have closed it up, and have given you a blood-replenishing potion.

“Now, how did you come by those injuries, and why did you not come to me sooner?”

Harry decided to go with the whole truth. The stern face of Madame Pomfrey was very persuasive, and there was no point hiding the origin of their injuries. “I woke up at night, after a nightmare, and there they were. I cleaned up the mess, and bandaged it up as well as I could. I didn’t want to... draw attention?” They frowned a little. They didn't understand  _ why  _ they hadn’t told their friends. That wasn’t  _ like  _ them, and they had enough sense  _ not  _ to conceal an injury which was  _ that  _ bad.

“Has this happened before?” the matron asked, frowning too, but for a different reason.

“Not  _ this  _ bad, no. It was sometimes really bruised, and sometimes a bit scratched up, but never like this. I also didn’t have a nightmare for almost three months, too.”

“Do you remember these particular nightmares? Are they triggered by something?”

“No, and I don’t know, Madam.”

Madam Pomfrey hummed thoughtfully.

“I will keep you here for observation until tomorrow morning, in case anything unexpected happens. However… I believe it would be unfair to keep you here any longer than that, if I don’t find out the cause or a prevention method for this… But it would be too dangerous for you to stay in your own dorm, I believe, if this happened at an even greater scale, and no one noticed until morning. You could bleed out completely. I think you should be moved into the the spell-monitored dorm, with a direct portal-floo to here, instead.”

“Spell-monitored dorm?” asked Hermione.

“In Gryffindor Tower, that would be the highest one in the tower, accessible for both girls and boys, as both staircases lead there in the end, though the main entrance is the unmarked, sealed door that you have probably already noticed. It can be shared by a maximum of seven people, and is often used for those with randomly-recurring illnesses, that need quick attention, thus the portal-floo connection, which allows the person to be simply levitated in from there to here through the activated grate. There are spells that monitor the condition of the people in there, and set off alarms here if one person is injured or in a state that could lead to death. It also has a separate bathroom for each person that could reside there. This dorm is also used for those students who are… non-binary, though in Gryffindor there are currently no students that have come forward as needing it. There are others in other Houses, however.”

“You said four beds… Can I and Neville move in there too? You know, so that we can help out if something happens, and so Harry won’t have to be alone?”

“Indeed. That has often happened before, friends sharing a dorm. Ms… Granger, is it?... Can move in as well if you’d like, as each person’s section can be sealed off by the owner for privacy, and in that state no one can enter or see into that section.”

“I certainly would, Madam.”

“Then I suggest that you three move your stuff there today, and help Mr Potter move his tomorrow. I shall notify Professor McGonagall. Now, you three go to your next class. Mr Potter is alive and well, and will stay here, so don’t worry. You can return during lunch break, to pick him up. Shoo!”

Neville, Ron and Hermione left, sending apologetic glances at Harry.

They did, indeed, return as soon as Defence Against the Dark Arts finished, and brought Harry up to date on what they missed there. “In one word: nothing.” Ron succinctly explained.

“What did you do there this time, then?” Harry asked.

“Me and Neville played hangman on a piece of paper, and Hermione read the Transfiguration textbook about what we missed during Transfiguration, while we were being grilled by Pomfrey on what happened to you.”

“We just kept answering ‘We don’t know’ and ‘No, we haven’t noticed this’.” Hermione said. “We do want to know, though. We were so worried when you passed out, and we didn't know what to do, or what had happened! You do feel alright now, yes?"

"Yeah, it's all fine."

"How long has this been going on?”

“Uh… Since I was…. seven, I think, but not so bad as last night. It was always slightly worse each time though, starting from nothing.”

“Slightly?”

“Yeah. Until last night, the worst I had were really bad bruises, light scratches and some general pain, but that’s it. No worse.”

“Then what happened last night?”

“No idea, Hermione.”

“No ideas from you, either. We are all idea-less. We should be called the ‘Confused Quartet’, really.”

“Nah, that’s a bit mean.” Ron remarked. “What about the ‘Head-scratching Quartet’?”

“That’s too long. What about ‘Questioning Quartet’?” Harry suggested.

“Or just ‘Questioners’.” said Neville.

Ron stood up from where he sat, and puffed himself up, imitating Percy, who they’d seen do that when he tried to confiscate a Biting Frisbee from a fourth-year. “Lady and Gentlemen, I pronounce ourselves to be called the ‘Questioners’. From now on, we shall question all! We will leave nothing unquestioned, no-one unconfused by our ceaseless search for answers to any and all questions that we have!”

Everyone exchanged glances and simultaneously burst out laughing.

“But why not actually call ourselves that if he have to use a pseudonym?” asked Harry. “It’s not really personal, and it’s funny, to us.”

“We could use it if we ever pranked anyone, and wanted to take credit without being found out.” Ron suggested.

“Ron!” Hermione exclaimed indignantly.

“Well, why not? We don’t have to be mean about it. We could, I dunno, hex all the Slytherins to have green hair for an hour.”

“Or we could hex everyone to have hair the colour of house colours.” suggested Neville.

“And have the teachers have neon pink hair!” Harry put in.

Hermione looked conflicted, as though trying to decide whether she should be laughing at the hilarious picture painted by those words, or indignant about their blatant disrespect. Laughter won out. “Alright, but we need to do it properly! We should find an area spell, so we can spell the tables as a whole, and have the spells activate on people at a much later time, like dinner, when everyone is there, so it can’t be traced back to  _ us _ . We also should find a way to cast a spell to show that this was done by the ‘Questioners’, like a banner or just floating words.”

They quietly began to plan, keeping watch on Madam Pomfrey, so that she wouldn’t hear their mischief-making. The quartet ate lunch in the Hospital Wing, as Madame Pomfrey predicted that they wouldn’t leave Harry just to go eat, and so she provided trays laden with food for all four of the students.

“Madam, where do you get the food?” Hermione asked. The boys snickered, as she lived up to their newly-minted group name.

“The house-elves send up food from the kitchens. You can find the kitchens on the ground floor, if you tickle the pear on the painting fruit-bowl painting.”

“House-elves?” asked Hermione, after Madame Pomfrey left the Hospital Wing to go to the Great Hall to eat.

“Oh right, you’re Muggleborn. House-elves are little magical creatures. They partially feed off wizard magic, which they get by bonding with wizards or really big magical establishments like Hogwarts, and in return they work for those they are bonded to. Their ‘masters’ can only set them free by giving them clothing, though only directly, hand-to-hand.” Neville explained.

“Can they leave, or disobey?”

“No, but if they left they’d die in about a year, so not really an option, that. Besides, most wizards treat them well. Who wants to have creatures, that can find a hundred loopholes in their orders, against them?” Ron said around a mouthful of sausage.

“Oh, alright then.” Hermione started eating too, satisfied by the answers to her questions.

After they consumed as much of the food as they could, the four discussed some more prank ideas featuring, among other things, pink robes, a bribed Peeves, and a crate of dungbombs.

Eventually, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Harry left for their afternoon classes, Harry having been cleared to leave for three hours on the provision that they did no magic and was always accompanied by at least two of their three friends, which was not a hardship at all.

They returned to the Hospital Wing for dinner, as Harry’s “Away from Hospital Wing” time ran out, and Ron and Neville decided to explain Quidditch to Harry and Hermione.

At fifteen to nine Neville, Ron and Hermione were chased out by the matron, so they had enough time to return to Gryffindor Tower before curfew, in the middle of Ron explaining why the Ballycastle Bats Quidditch team was inferior to the Chudley Cannons, and Neville ardently defending them.

Harry was left alone in the Hospital Wing, where they fell into a deep and nightmare-free sleep.

  
  
  



	10. A Malfoy Interruption

Next morning, Harry was released from the Hospital Wing, free to go to classes, though they still had had breakfast in the Hospital Wing, along with the other Questioners, who had trooped in once the Morning Curfew ended, Ron and Neville still tiredly discussing Ballycastle Bats and the Chudley Cannons, Hermione wearing a long-suffering face.

They had Charms first, and as they waited for the classroom to open, the rest of the students arrived. Then, one of the Slytherins, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, approached the quartet.

He had a pale, pointed face, and only slightly darker blonde hair. He wore an unpleasant sort of smirk on his face, and Harry had a feeling that he would not like the boy very much.

“Hello, Harry Potter. I am Draco Malfoy, son of  _ Lucius _ Malfoy, one of the School  _ Governors _ . Would you like to be my friend? You don’t have to hang out with useless riff-raff like  _ them. _ ” He gestured at Harry’s friends. 

“No thank you. I like my friends very much.”

“A mud-muggleborn, a squib and a blood traitor? I thought you’d know to stay away from the like of those.”

“What did my friends ever do to you?”

“They go to this school, and pretend to be a proper  _ witch  _ and  _ wizards _ . If my father had his way, rubbish like them would be allowed nowhere near Hogwarts.”

Outraged gasps from the other first year non-Slytherins erupted at his words from the students that had gathered around the, to listen to the conversation. Even four Slytherins, two - were they boys or girls? Harry couldn’t tell -  one with silver-grey eyes, the other albino, a boy with dark brown hair, and a girl with very curly black hair, frowned darkly at Malfoy. Harry made a mental note to try to talk to them at some point. 

“You know, Malfoy, if you want to make friends with someone, try acting nice. I know, it sounds ridiculous, absolutely unprecedented, but it just might work, seeing as you don’t have any natural charm  _ at all _ .”

“No one asked you, Mudblo-muggleborn.”

There were more outraged gasps, and the four Slytherins looked like they were about to manually drag Malfoy away, to stop him being such an embarrassment.

“Mind you, if you faint just from being in a classroom, I don’t want to be friends with a weakling like you.” He sneered, turned around, and walked over to the other Slytherins.

“Who stuck a wand up  _ his  _ arse?”

“Ron!”

“Hermione, he was about to say the most insulting and derogatory thing one can say, before he realised there may be Prefects just around the corner. We could have hexed him if he said it, and gotten away with a one-point loss.”

“What was he about to say?”

“M-m-mudblood. Don’t make me say it again. It’s really rude. It means ‘dirty blood’.”

Harry and Hermione frowned, then exchanged glances, that turned into evil grins as they looked back at Malfoy.

“Who feels like making our debut tomorrow, and hexing him the day after that?”

“We’ll need a few hours in the library and lots of practice, but this is urgent.

 

Next morning, at breakfast, the Questioners eagerly awaited the activation of the charms. It had been very easy - the spells they needed had been extremely simple, even if it had taken them three hours to find the book with them.

A minute after the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs had sat down, they activated. Suddenly, all the student’s robes had turned one of the House colours, depending on which side of the table they sat, with a question mark of the other colour floating above their heads. Naturally, the quartet had not excluded themselves.

Just as all most of the students started clamoring about the sudden change in robe colour, though the Gryffindors took it mostly in stride with a shrug, there was a flash above the entrance to the Great Hall, which left a string of fiery letters behind it, spelling “WELCOME THE QUESTIONERS. WHO ARE WE? WE WILL NOT ANSWER. WE ARE NOT THE ANSWERERS.”

The teachers investigated, but could find no clues, as the charms faded after twenty minutes, and the wand signatures were completely scrambled by the fact that they were cast by four very different wands.

 

Three days later, when Draco Malfoy walked into the hall, his robes suddenly turned a garish orange, green and pink, and the words PUDDING BRAIN hung above his head. The charms, again, faded after half an hour, once most of the school had seen it, and the Weasley Twins made multiple photos to sell.


	11. Flight Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 26 Sept 2016: Apologies, but I am unlikely to update this story in the near future. My brain is being troublesome and is enthusiastically trying to off me, and I can't spare enough energy to write a complicated and detailed story such as this one, especially if I want to do it justice.  
> I will still be posting stuff, but mostly one/two/three-shots, mostly depressing/interesting ones, for various fandoms.  
> I hope I can resume soon... but realistically, my brain will likely only let up on its mission sometime in December. Maybe November.
> 
> I am very, very sorry...

The opportunity to meet the four Slytherins came two weeks later, on a Thursday, though the events leading up to it started on Monday.

The quartet had woken up in the morning on Monday, after a thankfully nightmare free night for Harry, and gone done to the Common Room, where they found a new notice on the boards, which read “MANDATORY FLYING CLASSES FOR FIRST YEARS: THURSDAY, AFTER LUNCH, WITH SLYTHERINS. BE ON THE QUIDDITCH PITCH.” It had been a free period for them, as the Etiquette class had ended at the beginning of October.

“Oh no! I’ve never been on a broom before! I don't know how to fly!”

“Then you’ll learn Hermione. It’s really easy. I can fly already. What about you Neville?”

“Gran thinks I get into too many accidents with both feet on the ground. Never been. This won’t be fun.” Neville groaned. “Anyone wanna bet on me not breaking a bone?”

“None of us take sucker bets, Neville. Especially me, with Fred and George in the family. And Malfoy is gonna be there.”

“Harry? Hermione?”

“Nope.” They answered in unison.

Something niggled at Harry’s brain. Slytherins… Slytherins…

“Hey! Remember those four Slytherins? One of whom is albino? Who are nice? This is a great opportunity to meet them, since we will all return to the school from the same place at the same time.”

So, on Thursday, Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron all trooped out on to the Quidditch Pitch, where two rows of new, neat brooms lay on the ground. Harry was nervous. Out of four, only Ron knew how to fly. What if something happened?

Hermione spent most of the week trying to read up on flying, and badgering older students for tips, though she found them to be generally rather useless.

The flying instructor, Professor Hooch, walked to stand between the last people in the two rows, and observed them with bright yellow eyes, like a hawk’s.

“Stand by a broom, put you dominant hand over it, and order it to go up like you would a dog. The magic can tell if you are nervous. Now!”

The class started to shout “Up” at their brooms. Harry and their friends, to their elation, were the only ones apart from the albino Slytherin and the black haired friend of the albino to get it on their first try. Even Malfoy, who had spent the whole week boasting about his skills, didn’t get it on the first try, and Goyle had it come up on the third try to smack into his face. Harry felt a little vindictive, remembering the insults Malfoy had spewed.

Eventually, everyone managed to get their brooms in their hand and then they were shown how to mount them.

“Now, on my command, gently kick off the ground, fly up a foot, and then come down by gently pointing the broom down. THREE! TWO! ONE!”

But Hermione pushed off a second too early and far too hard and sped up in the air like a rocket. Professor Hooch, who had expected someone to fail at flying or controlling the broom, motioned them to stay and took off on a broom too, but it was too late. Hermione, who had managed to bring the broom down some distance, had lost control completely at that point and fell off the broom. She plummeted 30 feet down, on to the grass, landing with a sickening crack.

“What a waste of space, that Mudblood. Hope she died.” Harry barely heard that as they, Ron and Neville ran over to where Hermione lay spread eagled, one arm and leg at unnatural angles, and somehow very quietly screaming from the pain, and very obviously alive.

The flying instructor hurried over and conjured a stretcher, onto which Hermione was levitated. Before they could depart the field, however, the albino Slytherin - and Harry still did not know if it was a girl or a boy, walked over with their friends, dragging an unconscious Malfoy, who had foam and soap bubbles around his entire mouth and face.

“Professor, there has been a small mishap. This one”, and those words were spat out like something rotten, “needs to go to the infirmary too.”

“Mishap?”

“His mouth wasn’t functioning properly. Spewing all manner of foul things. We tried to clean it, to make it work properly. Didn’t seem work. His brain stopped functioning too, at one point.”

Harry exchanged glances with Ron and Neville. They distantly thought that he really liked these Slytherins, but were far more worried about Hermione.

The Slytherin Quartet accompanied the Gryffindor one to the infirmary, for… unspecified reasons, though Harry was certain that he heard the brown-haired girl mutter something about threatening Malfoy to high heaven about his vocabulary.

Once Madame Pomfrey, loudly tutting, fixed Hermione’s arm and leg, they were allowed to leave. Harry suddenly had a train of thought return to them that they lost earlier.

“Hermione… Why did you not break anything more than an arm and a leg, falling that far?”

“She’s a Hogwarts-grade witch.” The albino suddenly intruded into their conversation. 

“What?” Harry asked confused. His friends also made confused faces.

“Well, you wouldn't know, not being raised in a magical household… But Lord Vol-Vol-dammit, can’t say it, well his ideas held a grain of reason regarding Muggles. Magicals are superior.” the albino explained.

“That’s racist!” Exclaimed Hermione, indignant at the statement.

“That’s fact, Granger. The more magical, the more superior.”

“That’s-”

“The magic enhances your physical and mental characteristics. The more magic, the greater the enhancement. And the strongest of all magicals in these Isles go to Hogwarts. So, Hogwarts-grade equals superior-grade.”

“Oh.. But what sort of enhancements, exactly?” Hermione asked as the other Gryffindors raptly listened, and the Slytherins observed them.

“Physically, we are faster and stronger. Healthier. We can survive pretty much anything that isn’t extraordinarily poisonous or fatal within a minute. We heal better and faster. Hogwarts-strength magicals are at  _ least _ physically almost on par with Low to Mid level Vampyrs.  Mentally? It doesn’t apply to everyone, but we tend to be much smarter than those our age. More grown-up. More focused.”

“That is so interesting!”

“I dislike ignorance. The name’s Aphe by the way. Not Daphne.”

“Nice to meet you then.”

“That black haired oyster is Blaise.”

“Who are you calling oyster, vamp?”

“You, obviously. And those two silent monoliths are Tracey and Theodore.”

“Silent? You just haven’t let us put in a word edgewise!” complained Tracey. “Introducing us, as well, like we can’t talk. Anyway, we should probably get going while the going is good. Malfoy is bound to wake up soon, and he hasn’t seen who hexed him, but he’d guess it was us if he woke up. Or he’d just blame us regardless.”

“And it’s Theo, not Theodore. Only my father calls me that, and he’s an absolute ass."

“Then let’s go.” Harry said.

The two groups of four marched out of the Hospital Wing, increasing their pace when they heard Malfoy groan behind them.

“Hermione, we have Charms now, right?” Asked Neville.

“Yup. Advanced Charms. And your group, Aphe, too?”

“Yes. We are the only Slytherins in the class, actually. Don’t you remember the other ones flunking out?”

“No. We were too busy learning.”

“Well, they were kicked out for messing around. Wasn’t paying too much attention to them myself, to be honest. Captain Obvious - that’s Theo - and I aren’t too good at Charms, unlike Sarcasm and Race, which is what I call Blaise and Tracey, respectively.”

“Not too good? You do realise you two do fine with just half the studying we do, right?” Tracey raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, well-”

“Oh dragon dung. I’ve forgotten my textbook. I’ll catch up later, alright?”

“Sure thing, Blaise. I’ll come with you, actually. My current inkpot is almost out of ink.”

Blaise and Tracey hurried off to the dungeons to get their stuff, leaving their friends with the Questioners, who continued to the dungeons. As they walked, they continued to talk about Charms, eventually moving on to other subjects. Surprising the Gryffindors, Aphe, who was a pureblood, was surprisingly informal when talking to those she considered as possible friends and  _ never  _ referred to anyone by their actual, proper name. Harry, Neville, Hermione and Ron were promptly rechristened Lock, Jolly, Ermine and Ronster, who couldn’t protest as they were too busy laughing at each other's nicknames. Ron, once he got enough breath, demanded that they get the chance to give Aphe a nickname too, but it turned out that a nickname already existed: ‘Vampyr’.

In Charms, they decided to change the seating arrangement around, each person partnering up with someone from a different House. Aphe and Harry, as leaders of their Quartets sat down together, leaving Neville, Ron and Hermione to partner up with Theo, Blaise and Tracey, respectively.

After a fun and very interesting lesson where they tried, and succeeded to shoot sparks out in various colours and formations out of their wands, with Ron and Blaise creating a shining snake and lion motif, they departed to dinner. And were presented with a problem.

“Hey, Lock? We are from two different Houses. Do you know if we can sit at the Gryffindor table?”

Hermione replied. “Yes, it’s allowed even at feasts. But I think we should sit at the Gryffindor table, since no one will really care there, and I think that quite a few of your housemates are giving us the evil eye.”

Blaise craned his neck and looked around. “Who?... Oh, it’s  _ that  _ part of the table.” 

“What’s so special ‘bout it?” Asked Ron.

“Nothing… Except the fact the children of those who were sentenced as, or accused of being Death Eaters, sit there, along with children whose parents are sympathisers of the cause. Flints, Avery, Macnair, Runcorn… It’s mostly the fourth years and under right now, and every year we’ll get more. The older lot are a lot more Light, due to having friends in other who Houses who set their heads straight. But this lot? Jr Death Munchers.”

“It’s not only Slytherins that are Junior Death Eaters though, right?”

“Oh, there are a few in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, but none in Gryffindor.”

“Why?”

“The older Gryffindors had threatened the hat with the 9th circle of hell if it ever sorted anyone like that there during the Blood War.”

“Blood War? I’ve never read about that.”

“Hermione, it’s just the name for what Voldemort was on about.” Ron explained, as the group sat down at the Gryffindor table. His housemates were giving their group a strange look, but most seemed to just shrug and continue eating.

Ron and Blaise immediately started stuffing themselves with food, with Theo and Neville following them at a slower pace. Aphe regarded them, amused, but started eating too, alongside the rest of the octet.

After dinner, they said their good-byes, as the Slytherins wanted to get back to their dorm to check that no one did anything to their things.

“Till tomorrow, then, Lock?” Aphe asked.

“Let’s meet up for breakfast at half past eight, yes?”

“You nuts? You all really get up that early?” Blaise asked, incredulity colouring his voice.

“Gives our brains more time to wake up.”

“Well, alright. We’ll try it, nutters. Bye!”


End file.
